A Historical Review of Prohibition in Colombia: The following review proposes some of the landmarks of how Prohibition changed the course of Colombia’s history. Hopefully these analyses, documents and proposals will help us to better see how we have come to the conflict and corruption we are now immersed in and, by so doing, bring light to a way back to normalizing drugs and thus, to attaining peace with plants and drugs. Man's attempts at banning Master Plants, such as coca, has had a devastating effect on Colombia's natural legacy, as proven by the disastrous environmental impact of almost 40 years of chemical spraying to pretend to eradicate marihuana, coca and poppy by means of the same agrochemicals used to increase these crops' productivity.

"If you come to this place, so far away from your country, in search of the evil that afflicts you, there is no doubt that you must be very ill."

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A Review of How Prohibition Conditoned the Course of Colombia's History

Antonio Escohotado: Chemical Euphoria and Human Dignity “Prohibition might be considered “the greatest moral experiment of our time”, as F.D.Roosevelt stated in 1932. But banishing drugs from human life is, in fact, a war against self-induced euphoria, and also a war against chemistry and human invention. Such an enterprise was born in the USA, and has been exported by this country at the very same rhythm in which it became the world's superpower. The effect of this American crusade is identical to the general effect of crusades, and especially of the crusade against witchcraft: aggravating to unheard extremes a hypothetical evil, justifiying the destruction and plundering of countless persons, promoting the ill-gotten wealth of corrupt inquisitors, and creating a prosperous black market for all the forbidden items -which in the seventeenth century were sorcerer's concoctions, and today are heroin, cocaine, crack, etc., Opening lecture for a multi-disciplinary conference held at the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, 18 October, 1996

Charles Q. Choi Drugs Found in Hair of Ancient Andean Mummies, "The first hard evidence of psychoactive drug use in the ancient Andes has been discovered in mummies' hair, a new study says. […] The finding confirms that predecessors of the Inca known as the Tiwanaku used mind-altering substances, and hints that the civilization relied on far-reaching trade networks to obtain the drugs."National Geographic News, [Octobre 27, 2008]

H.Barrie Fairley: "Anesthaesia in the Inca Empire" / La “anestesia” en el imperio incaico "The Incas did not have written systems and the chronicles say little regarding their surgeries and make not mention whatsoever of how they reduced the pain suffered through these surgeries. Chances are that they had developed some form of anaesthesia. Some of the plants they had which produced central effects include, among others, maize (which they used to prepare by different means an alcoholic beverage, the chicha), datura, espingo or hawthorn, tobacco, the San Pedro Cactus and Coca . The Incas used chicha to put the patients to sleep for minor surgeries … datura, espingo, tobacco and the San Pedro Cactus can be used to induce a deep trance and most likely served as anaesthetics. There is evidence to the fact that datura was used as a partial or full anaesthetic, The Incas chewed coca leaves with lime and swallowed the juice. By so doing, they could work long hours without food and drink . Currently indigenous communities in Perú hold that coca numbs the mouth but, even in the 19th Century, it was a known fact that coca leaves applied to wounds helpsto alleviate the pain. It is possible to deduce that the Incas used chicha, probably combined with some other narcotic, to attain partial of full anaesthesia for their surgeries. A coca-leaf concoction might have bee used as topical anaesthesia. , Rev. Esp. Anestesiol. Reanim. 2007; 54: 556-562 [2007]

Fernando García: "Drug Use by the Pre-Culumbian Peoples -Elements for an Alternative Crimminal Policy" / El consumo de drogas en los pueblos precolombinos –Elementos para una “política criminal” alternativa: "It is highly likely that the greatest number of psychoactive substance in the world were to be found in Indigenous America where a great variety of plants and even animal secretions were used by way of inhaling, eating , drinking and enemas. [Cornejo 1991] […] However age-old this practice might have been, at Columbus’s arrival in America, this practice was widespread throughout practically all of the peoples and cultures in pre-Columbian America. […] The Rio Bravo Region is the zone where the use of these psychoactive substances has been particularly studied. […] There, in what is today known as Mexico…, dozens of cultures developed. In general, all of these cultures used vegetable products capable of generating some form of mind alteration. The most widely-known today are two stimulants which at one point were of a sacred nature and which have currently become profane and are nowadays treated as mere commodities. […] Chocolate, originally from Mexico, is one of these substances. […] Tobacco, also currently known and used worldwide, also originally from America, is the second of these substances.” Profesor de Criminología Universidad Andrés Bello y Profesor de Derecho Penal Universidad de la República, Santiago de Chile Revista Electrónica de Ciencia Penal y Criminología, Reflexiones, July 21, 2002

[ref to 1493] Víctor Hugo Cano Bedoya: "Approach for a New National Drug Policy" Aproximación a una nueva Política Nacional de Drogas: "It would appear that the first known written testimony on the use of psychoactive substances in America was narrated by Christopher Columbus, who in 1493 refers to the healers in La Española island who inhaled a powder called cohoba (a famous brand of fine Habana cigars, Cohiba, is named after this ancient powder) which gave them visions, they could diagnose illnesses and foresee future events. In 1499 Américo Vespucio, when he visited the Guajira Peninsula, saw some of the natives with their mouths full of a green plant and a white flour. (Pérez, 1988) […] Regarding the origin of Coca, for example, writers agree on the fact that its use dates back to before the colonial period, and that artefacts such as handicrafts, sculptures, tombs and goldwork evidence the use of psychoactive substances with objects such as mortars, pipes, tiny spoons and poporos (lime gourds). For example, in the culture developed in San Agustin, sculptures with circular protuberances under their cheeks are frequently to be found. […] It seems fairly obvious that, prior to what is known as the Discovery, native populations already consumed coca, tobacco, chicha, yagé , among other substances, and these were imbued with mythical and ritual values. Prior to the Spaniards arrival, the use of the products did not constitute a social problem, since it was restricted to special occasions and means of ingestion (orally).” Psicólogo Universidad de San Buenaventura, Medellín (USB), Operador Centro de Investigación y Atención al Farmacodependiente (CIAF) , 2007

[1551-1574] The 1551 Lima Councils issued Royal Charters ordering the Church to collect tithes on coca. The 1567 Royal Charter banned coca as the “devil’s talisman” an issues several charters. In 1570, 1571, 1574 the Viceroys authorized coca growing as essential for working in the mines.The clergy was forbidden form receiving payment in kind.

[Colonial times] Thomas Szasz: Our Right to Drugs, The Case for a Free Market : "From the founding of the American Colonies until the Civil War, marijuana was an important cash crop, yielding the raw materials needed for the production of canvas, clothing, and rope. The colonists, including George Washington, grew marijuana. Of course that is not what they called it. They called it "hemp," just as they called their Negro slaves "three-fifths Persons." Though few people realize that the Constitution so stamps some of the people who built our country, at least those who do realize it understand how such fictitiously fractional persons became real, full-fledged human beings. But how many people know that hemp, coca, and the opium poppy are ordinary plants, understand how they became transformed into dreaded "dangerous drugs," and realize that in losing our rights to them we have surrendered some of our most basic rights to property?" , 1992

[1858 ref to] Javier Mendoza Pizarro "The True History of the Discovery of Cocaine" /: La verdadera historia del descubrimiento de la cocaína. "Much like the Andean world has a rich mythology regarding the coca leaf which is expressed through legends and traditions regarding its origin, use and traits, the Western world has developed its own mythology on the product f its own making; cocaine […] ‘Enrico Pizzi is the Adam who first tried the forbidden fruit from the coca tree. Nonetheless, history occurred in a more complex manner. In the mid 19th century, an Italian pharmacist, Enrico Pizzi, settled in La Paz. Pizzi was in charge of the Bolivian Pharmacy and Drugstore which went on t become one of the most important pharmacies at the time. An issue of the Gaceta Oficial de La Paz published on June 30, 1858 contains an article whose title was “Cocaine: new organic-vegetable base” . In this article, the pharmacist announces that he has managed to isolate the basic active principle in the coca leaf. Simply abiding by the labeling proposed by modern chemists for plants’ immediate principles, he called this new substance cocaine, short for coca, vegetable from which it was obtained. […] He then goes on to describe the substance in detail: ‘cocaine is coca’s active and salified principle. It appears as an amorphous mass, made up of microscopic semitransparent cubic crystals. In its pure state it is totally white, unalterable by air and its organoleptic properties are reminiscent of its origin. […]He even describes its two classic saline combinations: ‘cocaine sulfate crystallizes into white, satin-like and fragile waters and its hydrochloride into superficially cubic and transparent layers…’[…] Pizzi, like several foreigners of his time who had observed the effects of coca use, considered that the leaves had important therapeutic virtues. In his article he mentions some of the se beneficial qualities and informs that his recently-discovered cocaine could serve as an invaluable advantage for the country and towards the pain suffered by humanity.” Sandro Calvani, “La Coca pasado y presente mitos y realidades” Ediciones Aurora, 2007:

[1859 ref to ] Mariani Coca and its therapeutic application “Indeed, according- to statements by all authors, the Indians who pass an entire day without eating, notwithstanding the hardship of forced marches, content themselves with chewing Coca leaves, and eat very heartily in the evening. "The indigenous people Indians who accompanied me on my voyage," says Weddel, " chewed Coca leaves all day, neither drinking, eating, nor showing any signs of fatigue. But at evening they replenished their stomachs like men who were completely famished, and I can assure you that I have some times seen them devour at one meal more aliment than I could have consumed in two days." We will see, further on, that it is in exciting the cerebro-medullary and ner vous muscular functions, in part, and partly in producing a soothing effect on the mucous membrane of the stomach, that Coca produces these wonderful results in the conservation of energy without the tortures of hunger, notwithstanding the deprivation of aliment.[...] In 1859 Niemann discovered the active principle of the leaves of Coca, to which he gave the name of Cocaine, though, in fact, the discovery of this alkaloid should be attributed to Gardeke, who had separated it in 1855 under the name of Erythroxyline.” (p. 29) , (pdf) [1890]

[1860-1950 ref a] Paul Gootenberg "The Rise and Demise of Coca and Cocaine 1860-1950".This paper treats coca and cocaine as essentially export “commodities” rather than menacing drugs.This commodity perspective makes perfect sense for the period at hand, 1860-1950, from the years Andean coca-leaf first hit world markets to the beginnings of today’s circuits of illicit cocaine. During this intervening century both were still seen as legitimate or even progressive articles of commerce. Taking coca and cocaine as goods--rather than singularly spiritual or pariah substances--may also temper some of the passionate thinking (and policies) that surround these Andean products today." Preliminary Paper Conference on “Latin America and Global Trade” Social Science History Institute, Stanford University November 16-17 2001

[1870 ref to] "After Moreno and Maiz, Dr. Gazeau in 1870 studied the stimulating effects of coca on nutrition and found that it increased the pulse and respiration, assisted digestion, increased urinary excretion, and strengthened the nervous system. This author arrived at the conclusion that coca prolongs life and promotes muscular energy. He advises its use, locally, for stomatitis, gingivitis, aphthous ulceration, and generally for painful and difficult digestion, gastric disturbances in phthisis and also for obesity. (Note. It should be remarked that Coca in Colombia has historically been given in infusions to children for stomach cramps and other). (Mariani)

[1883 ref to] Little use was made of it (the alkaloid cocaine, isolated in pure form) in Europe until 1883, when a German army physician, Dr. Theodor Aschenbrandt, secured a supply of pure cocaine from the pharmaceutical firm of Merck and issued it to Bavarian soldiers during their autumn maneuvers. He reported beneficial effects on their ability to endure fatigue” in Schaffer Drug Library Cocaine

ref to 1883] Annemarie Bos The History of Licit Cocaine in the Netherlands: "In 1833 ... coca plants were introduced in the Dutch East Indies and 3 years later commercial planting started. The coca introduced in the Dutch East Indies was another species than the one that was grown in South America and initially it was difficult to extract cocaine from these leaves. However in the 1890s the German company Farbwerke developed a new extraction method especially for Java coca. This new but difficult process resulted in a substantial increase in the yield of cocaine from Java cocaand soon it exceeded the supply from South American coca by almost twice the output. Until 1900, the sole customer for leaves of Java was this German company, which had the exclusive patent for the processing of Java coca into cocaine. The monopoly enabled the company Farbwerke to keep prices ofcoca leaves low."De Economist 154, NO. 4, 2006

[1884 ref to] “Merck made about a quarter of world cocaine and for a decade; it was the firm’s most profitable single product line. … The turning point for Merck was 1884-86 (i.e., the start of anesthesia and other medical uses) when prices and output jumped five and twenty-times respectively. The spike caused a much-discussed and alarming international “crisis” in coca supply. Merck’s strategy was to encourage Peruvian suppliers of “crude cocaine” (and likely sent agents to Lima to this end), a semi-processed (80- 90% pure) jungle cocaine-sulfate cake. This shipped far easier and efficiently than dried leaf, and was processed into medicinal grade cocaine in Germany for Merck’s global distribution network. It also fit the German cultural-medical preference for “pure” scientific cocaine. By 1900, almost all German imports--more than 6,000 kilos a year at peak in 1903-5, worth nearly 100,000£--arrived in this form, superceding coca-leaf.” (Gootenberg)

[1884 ref to] B. Raymond Fink : The Introduction of Local Anesthesia,: "Koller was the one who, in 1884, realized and demonstrated the ability of cocaine to produce surgical local anesthesia. This landmark in humanity's long struggle against pain was one of the most important medical discoveries of the nineteenth century, or any century, and missed winning the Nobel Prize only because I it was made a little too soon, and too convincingly (Liljestrand,G.:Actaphysiol.scand.Suppl299,1967], p.5)

[1884 ref to] David F. Musto Opium, Cocaine and Marijuana in American History The story of cocaine use in America is somewhat shorter than that of opium, but it follows a similar plot. In 1884 purified cocaine became commercially available in the U.S. At first the wholesale cost was very high-S5 to $10 a gram-but it soon fell to 25 cents a gram and remained there until the price inflation of World War I. Problems with cocaine were evident almost from the beginning, but popular opinion and the voices of leading medical experts depicted cocaine as a remarkable, harmless stimulant. William A. Hammond, one of America's most prominent neurologists, extolled cocaine in print and lectures. By 1887 Hammond was assuring audiences that cocaine was no more habit-forming than coffee or tea. He also told them of the "cocaine wine" he had perfected with the help of a New York druggist: two grains of cocaine to a pint of wine. Hammond claimed that this tonic was far more effectivethan the popular French coca wine, probably a reference to Vin Mariani, which he complained had only half a grain of cocaine to the pint.Coca-Cola was also introduced in 1886 as a drink offering the advantages of coca but lacking the danger of alcohol. It amounted to a temperance coca beverage. The cocaine was removed in 1900, a year before the city of Atlanta, Ga., passed an ordinance (and a state statute the following year) prohibiting provision of any cocaine to a consumer without a prescription.” Scientific American July 1991

[1885] Über Coca

Freud - Although Freud mentions many possibly uses (in asthma, stomach problems, anesthesia, and recovery from wasting diseases), most doctors (Freud included) thought that cocaine’s major therapeutic value would be in psychiatry. Although at the time doctors had many nervous system depressants available (such as laudanum, ether, or morphine), they didn’t have any stimulants. Doctors were already using cocaine for treatment of melancholic inhibition (major depressive disorder), and hypochondria (Antonio Julian, 1787). Studies were already taking place on the chronic effects of subcutaneous cocaine in depressed patients (Morselli and Buccola). The researchers observed a “slight improvement” in mood, but mostly noted the effects on digestion. Freud also noted that cocaine could be a powerful aphrodisiac (though he noted the sexual effects in some of his patients, he did not say whether he experienced any himself), and called for further investigation into the psychiatric effects of cocaine. Medical rescription by Sigmund Freud [1893] "Freud beieves cocaine addiction is more due to the user's personbality than to the drug itself". [García Hoyos 2002].

[1884-1930 ref to] Ruetsch, Böni and Borgeat: From cocaine to ropivacaine: the history of local anesthetic drugs. “As suggested by his friend Sigmund Freud, descriptions of the properties of the coca prompted the Austrian Koller to perform in 1884 the first clinical operation under local anesthesia, by administration of cocaine on the eye. The use of cocaine for local and regional anesthesia rapidly spread throughout Europe and America. The toxic effects of cocaine were soon identified resulting in many deaths among both patients and addicted medical staff. Local anesthesia was in a profound crisis until the development of modern organic chemistry which led to the synthesis of pure cocaine in 1891. New amino ester local anesthetics were synthesized between 1891 and 1930, such as tropocaine, eucaine, holocaine, orthoform, benzocaine, and tetracaine. In addition, amino amide local anesthetics were prepared between 1898 and 1972 including nirvaquine, procaine, chloroprocaine, cinchocaine, lidocaine, mepivacaine, prilocaine, efocaine, bupivacaine, etidocaine, and articaine. All of these drugs were ostensibly less toxic than cocaine, but they had differing amounts of central nervous system (CNS) and cardiovascular (CV) toxicity.”

[1890] Angelo Mariani Coca and its therapeutic application But should coca be regarded as merely a masticatory? And must we accept as irrevocable the decision of certain therapists? : “Cocaine worthless, coca a superfluous drug?”, New York 1890

[1904 ref to] Alfred Einhorn, one of the first pharmaceutical chemists, spent years evaluating cocaine and other local anesthetics. He stated in 1899 that (referring to Koller's use of cocaine) "since that time cocaine has been used frequently despite its numerous disadvantages, namely its great toxicity, the short duration of anesthesia, the impossibility of sterilizing the solution, its high cost, and so on -all factors which stimulated chemists to seek a substitute for cocaine which is free of its disadvantages or at least possesses them to a lesser degree." Such considerations have continued to influence the synthesis of new anesthetics to the present time.[…] Einhorn synthesized procaine in 1904, following synthesis of a number of compounds that lacked suitable anesthetic properties (Eucaine, Orthoform, Nirvanine, Holocaine). It was Heinrich Braun, however, who first published a description of procaine in 1905. Procaine became the most widely used local anesthetic until the introduction of the amide lidocaine, prepared by Löfgren in the 1940s. Such was the popularity of procaine, that to this day, most patients and many doctors (unfortunately) still use the name "Novocain" as a generic term for any local anesthetic.”Stanley F. Malamed: What's New in Local Anesthesia?, DDS School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California Anesth Prog 39:125-131 1992

[1895-1939 ref] "Synthetic drugs are the mainstay of the modern pharmaceutical industry, but the molecular manipulation that gave rise to new drugs began in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century, and Germany held a monopoly in synthetic drugs prior to the First World War, with drugs such as Salvarsan, Novocaine and Aspirin. As a result there has been a dearth of interest in this aspect of the development of the pharmaceutical industry outside the Germanic countries and an assumption that America and Britain eventually followed the German model. I will discuss how this was not always the case, at least until after 1939. […] “Pre-war Germany’s trade was very much enhanced by selling cartels and the drawing together of large manufacturing concerns. The first achievements were the elimination of competition within Germany and the organisation of concerted effects to undersell rivals in those lines where dangerous competition seemed likely to arise. There was certainly plenty of evidence of these sales cartels and the practice of selling below cost at the least threat of competition.” Keith J. Williams British Pharmaceutical Industry, Synthetic Drug Manufacture and the Clinical Testing of Novel Drugs 1895-1939, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine

[1902-1903] “The Cocaine Habit. — The reported excessive use of cocaine has attracted the attention of law-makers in a number of States. Several of the State Legislatures have already adopted bills restricting the legitimate sale of this chemical, while in others similar measures are pending. The Governor of Pennsylvania has recently approved a bill that had been passed by the State Legislature, which provides: "That no person shall sell, furnish, or give away cocaine, or any patent or proprietary remedy containing cocaine, except on the written prescription of a registered physician, or of a dentist, or of a veterinarian; nor shall any such prescription be refilled ; nor shall any physician, dentist or veterinarian prescribe cocaine or any patent or proprietary remedy containing cocaine, for any person known to such physician, dentist or veterinarian to be an habitual user of cocaine." " Provided that provisions of this act shall not apply to persons engaged in the wholesale drug trade, regularly selling cocaine to persons engaged in the retail drug trade." Persons violating any of the provisions of this act are to be sentenced to pay a fine of not more than £100, or to undergo an imprisonment of not more than six months, or both, at the discretion of the court.

Harry B. Mason: The Legislative Year. “The legislative year of 1902-3 in pharmacy has been full of interest, and full of suggestion also. It has registered a distinct advance in the enactment of a number of laws of real importance and necessity, and as usual it has brought forth also a chaotic mass of impossible, vicious and foolish measures which would have been sad commentaries on our national intelligence had they not failed of passage. No fewer than ninety-eight bills were introduced in the various State and territorial legislatures; nineteen of these found a place upon the statute books; and it is extremely fortunately such that on the whole this winnowing process selected the wheat from the chaff with sure intelligence. Speaking first of the bills which became law, it is exceedingly gratifying, in view of the threatening spread of the cocaine evil, that the year has produced four cocaine acts — those of Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Texas. Three of these measures contain features which render them decided improvements over pre-existing cocaine legislation. The Georgia law is the customary one limiting the sale of cocaine to physicians' prescriptions, and prohibiting the refilling of these prescriptions. But all three of the other laws go further and stop up a leak which has practically nullified the cocaine acts of several of the Southern States: they prohibit physicians from giving prescriptions for the drug to habitues, provide quite heavy penalties for violations, and in one instance (the Illinois measure) declare that the offending person shall have his license as a physician revoked upon conviction of the second offense. Moreover, recognizing that catarrh snuffs and other preparations containing the drug are fertile causes of cocaine addiction, the Illinois act by implication, and the Pennsylvania act by specific statement, place the sale of these articles upon exactly the same basis as the alkaloid itself. The Texas measure unfortunately exempts proprietary preparations, and it differs from the other acts also in throwing its restrictions around the sale, not of cocaine alone, but as well of morphine and opium. Incidentally it may be remarked that the phraseology of the Texas enactment is unfortunately such that the druggists of the State tear they will not be permitted to sell such common preparations as paregoric and Dover's powder save upon a physician's prescription, and in conformity with the provisions of the law.

[…] Cocaine measures of varying merit failed of passage in the legislatures of Alabama, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Mis- souri, Wyoming and West Virginia […]four cocaine bills, three of them uncommonly meritorious, Have been passed ; the druggists of New York State have secured the enactment of a liquor law with which they are greatly pleased ; in the prohibition States of Ver- mont and New Hampshire the illegal and promiscuous sale of liquor has given way to its sale under restrictions which are at once wise and enforceable; ..”

(Cocaine use) “Connecticut reports a physician who has treated over 1,200 cases in twenty-eight years ; fifty per cent, were addicted to morphine, thirty per cent, to opium and preparations and fifteen per cent, to cocaine. The cases were not confined to Connecticut. Georgia report says: Almost every colored prostitute addicted to cocaine; another, a physician's prescription reading cocaine 25 cents' worth. Indiana reports that a good many negroes and a few white women are addicted to cocaine. Maryland reports the sale of cocaine by disreputable physicians, the purchase by a retailer of #500 worth in six weeks ; of a small dealer who purchases on an average twenty-five ounces cocaine per week. Michigan reports increasing sale to negroes. Minnesota reports a case using several large bottles of efferves- cing salts per week, a case using chloroform, ether, chloral, cocaine and morphine, trional users among the theatrical profession. Ohio reports sales of jobbers to a lew druggists only which aggre- gate 600 ounces cocaine per month. J Acquirement of Drug Habits. Pennsylvania reports several heroin cases, another the purchase by a small retailer of 100,000 -grain morphine pills at a time. The sale of cocaine in drinks by saloon men is extensively followed. Virginia reports enormous growth of cocaine habit among ne- groes. General reports indicate that the sale of narcotics is not restricted to any section of the country, nor confined exclusively to the fallen and lower class. Information comes from several sources that in callings which demand many hours' work at a time or the hours of night, cocaine is resorted to for stimulation. […]Some patent-medicine manufacturers want to impress the con. sumer with the immediate relief idea ; nothing like cocaine for one who suffers with catarrh, nothing like an opiate for a pain, nothing like a stimulant to revive the patient who has become despondent over his supposed ailment. They have found the way to health and tell their friends about it, who help them spread the news, and soon we have a testimonial and a picture in our great dailies. If these combinations are good, and in reality only one of the ingredients does this wonderful work, why not take it by itself. We have now created an habitue in embryo. […]I have not devoted any space to the lower walks of life and will quote two in part. One from Montana reads : « Most drug fiends of this section come from the Pacific coast. They commence with smoking opium, which becomes too expensive and consumes too much time, so they eat morphine ; then they use it by injection because it goes further, then they tip their injection off with cocaine because it deadens the pain, and gradually they use more cocaine than morphine." The other report carries with it the same idea relative to morphine and cocaine, and says further that cocaine fiends are vicious, but that the habit is not as chaining as morphine. […] (See figures)..” of imports of opium, morphine, cocaine and chloral during the fiscal years 1901, 1902 and 1903 (nine months.) — The imports of cocaine salts are given only in the shape of the value of the quantity entered at the Custom Houses. There is an increase of $77,7$6 in the value of cocaine imported in 1902 over that for 1901, of $67,115 for the equivalent of the nine months of 1903 reported. Averaging $3 an ounce as the value of the cocaine, this gives us an increased importation of 25,920 ounces in 1902 and 22,372 ounces for nine months of 1903 — a fact that speaks volumes in itself. …We are unfortunate in not having a report on the importation of coca.

.[…] No doubt Prof. J. H. Beal, to whom the model cocaine law has been referred, will call attention to restrictions in the various States, and to refer to these here would simply mean repetition. The chairman believes that stringent State legislation providing fine and imprisonment with surrender of license to practise medicine and pharmacy is the best means to control this vice. Legislation has a tendency to induce secret sale by individuals, therefore various kinds of punishment are necessary. It does not seem practical for the Government to assume supervision of the sale other than perhaps by legislation, if the States fail in the necessary control. If handled like the cigar tax, it would avail little ; if like spirits, the plan would be exceedingly cumbersome and expensive, if not impractical, not only for the Government, but also for the druggists, and the business details of the latter are such that even now a large gross profit nets only insignificant returns. You are no doubt aware that in the larger cities, and possibly in the smaller, cocaine is served on request in drinks, and indications are that in places of this character all these drugs are supplied. The concluding remarks which the chairman would make are interwoven in some of those made by his col- league and are the result of his careful study and investigation […]

See “The Cocaine Habit” The frightful effects of coca ne on users of this very " devil-drug " have been so often and graphically told that it is hardly necessary to retell the story. One peculiar feature of the cocaine habit noted by the writer is that one of the first signs of the use in a person is that the habitue loses all care for personal appearance or neatness, and a man formerly the pink of neatness soon becomes noticeably slovenly in dress and appearance. There does not seem to be anything yet discovered that has as baneful an effect on the user as does cocaine. The writer has seen this drug literally turn a bright, high-principled man into a sneak-thief and liar, absolutely without regard for morality or principle. One redeeming feature there is : the habitual use of cocaine seems to lessen both sexual desire and ability, so there is less danger of its transmission by heredity. American Journal of Pharmacy, V 75 1903 Am. Jour. Phaim. ) October, 1903.

Golden Mortimer Coca "The Divine Plant of the Incas." “Oh, mighty lord, son of the Sun and of the Incas, thy fathers, thou who knoweth of the bounties which have been granted thy people, let me recall the blessings of the divine Coca which thy privileged subjects are permitted to enjoy through thy progenitors, the sun, the moon, the earth, and the boundless hills.” //Part of this historical record is from a paper first published in the Practical Druggist and Pharmaceutical Review of Reviews, October, 1910.Republished in Lloyd Library Bulletin, No. 18, “History of the Vegetable Drugs of the Pharmacopæa of the United States,” by John Uri Lloyd, 1911

1910-1930] Annemarie Bos" The History of Licit Cocaine in the Netherlands, From the 17th century onwards, the Dutch government was actively involved in the opium-trade in the Dutch East Indies. Opium was one of the most profitable trading items of the Dutch East Indies and contributed a great deal to government receipts. The increasing popularity of coca and cocaine in the late 19th century sparked the then new idea of planting coca in the Dutch East Indies and of exporting its leaf to the West. This turned out to be a major success by the beginning of the 20th century as the Netherlands became the largest producer of coca in the world. This situation ended in the late 1920s as the result of international treaties and national laws which restricted production severely. […] The largest and most important manufacturer of cocaine in the Netherlands was the Nederlandsche Cocaınefabriek , established in 1900 at the Schinkelkade in Amsterdam. Compared to the pharmaceutical plants in Germany, the Dutch Cocaine Factory was a small and specialized factory. Most of its foreign competitors were big pharmaceutical and highly diversified factories, which produced numerous other commodities beside cocaine. These companies could afford to spend a lot of money on marketing, whereas the Dutch Cocaine Factory only had a small marketing budget. However, because of its successful price-competition strategy, the Dutch Cocaine Factory was able to gain a growing market share. The company expanded rapidly in particular during World War I. Although the planters had a difficult time during World War I, the Dutch Cocaine Factory flourished. The demand for cocaine rose dramatically as a result of the war, while supply lines and rival factories were cut off by the war.[…] The Dutch Cocaine Factory continued to play an important role in the production of cocaine throughout the 1920s. Nevertheless, due to the decreasing demand for cocaine and increased competition from foreign manufacturers the factory was forced to diversify and produce other mostly synthetic products. In 1921 it began with Novocain, which had been invented much earlier but became relevant after legal constraints were imposed on commercial cocaine. 5 As time went by, the synthetic replacements for cocaine became more and more important and compensated for the shrinking demand for cocaine in the 1920s.” De Economist 154, NO. 4, 2006

[1910 ref to] Cocaine History, Use and Abuse, “…spread of morphia, and cocaine habit is becoming an eveil more serious and more deadly than opium smoking, and this evil is certain to increase.” Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Minister writing to the American Ambassador in London 1910, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1999

[1914 ref to] Anne Coppel: We tend to forget that cocaine has a role to pay in our history. It was at the root of the first Prohibition law in France. … Cocaine was at the time considered a German weapon. Made by a powerful German pharmaceutical company, it was said to attack men physically and women morally. ... The cocaine vogue started in 1914 just before the war but the scandal goes public with the campaign against traffickers and degenerates who party while the country at large cries for those who are dying. Cocaïne, tempus fugit , January 2003

[1917 -ref a] Daniel Boorstin Crime as a Service Institution "The high level of lawlessness," Walter Lippmann observed in 1931, is maintained by the fact that Americans desire to so many things which they also desire to prohibit….Moralistic and unrealistic laws, as Walter Lippmann explained, provided the underworld with its own effective protective tariff. The result, in the 20th century, was perhaps the most flourishing array of outlaw enterprises ever found in a modern nation.” ... By 1917, even before the (18th) amendment was introduced, some sorto f state-wide Prohibition had already be enacted in twenty-three states, and thirteen were totally dry." The Americans -The Democratic Experience”, Vintage Books, 1974

[1925] International Opium Convention, Geneva, Can moral values in the East differ from those of the Western world? Two separate treaties were concluded. In the absence of the US delegate, the one for opium suppression did not ban recreational use of this substance. The second convention attacks the three main Sacred Plants at the heart of ancient cultures, poppy, coca and cannabis, and their pharmaceutical preparations. February 19, 1925

[1931] The drug control treaty promulgated in Geneva as the Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs was a pharmaceutical convention that limited cocaine and its salts, including preparations made directly from the coca leaf and containing more than 0.1 percent of cocaine, all the esters of ecgonine and their salts to scientific and medical uses and stipulated that coca and derivatives could be put under international control without needing the consent of the countries party to the treaty. [July 13, 1931 entered into force on July 9, 1933]

[1936] Ley 48 de 1936 Punished traffickers and marijuana users by dispatching them to agricultural colonies.

[1938] La Resolución No. 25 de 1938 Considering the Republic of Colombia is committed, under international conventions, to supervise coca-leaf commerce…the coca leaf can only be sold by authorized dispensaries. (Coca-leaf goes under pharmaceutical control..)
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[1941] La Resolución No. 578 de 1941 Controls not only coca-leaf trade but coca crops as well. Coca shrubs must now be counted, the areas planted monitored and the names of the owners and yearly productivity accounted for and the owner must inform if the coca harvests are for selling and new plantings are banned.

[1942] Miguel de Garganta Fábrega:. The figures mentioned by Dr Garganta Fábegra give us an idea of the increasing consumption, Take the figures from 1939 to 1940. In 1939, 40,000 kilos were consumed and just a year later, 131.222 kilos were consumed. ". [Remedios de la Peña 1954] Noticia sobre la coca en el Occidente Colombiano", Revista de Historia, I, 215-232, Pasto,

[1945] Jorge Bejarano In Colombia coca chewing is called mambeo. Mambe is, in effect, the alkaline preparation which the coqueros (coca chewers) get from cocaine. It is a paste obtained by cooking limestone. The stones are burned much like brick burning and they are then put in a bowl which contains panela (unrefined brown sugar) which dissolves them. This liquid is then mixed with ashes to give it consistency, and bits of crushed chilli peppers added. When the paste is cold it is cut into small block which are wrapped in green-plantain leaves and buried in the ground for several days ‘the heat of the soil makes the mambe good’, according to the Indians. This product is taken to market, where the coca is also sold in chunks whcih can cost from one to twenty cents. Two cents worth of this paste are a person’s weekly rations and a pound is the equivalent of a 10-week ration. ". …Coca chewing is a habit much like morphine is to a morfinómano (morphine addict) and cocaine to the cocainómano. (cocaine addict.). El cocaísmo en Colombia Oficina Sanitaria Panamericana, abril 1945

[1946] Ley 45 de 1946 /Known as the “Ley Consuegra . It modified criminal provisions regarding the processing, distribution, sale or supply, even if without selling for a fee, of narcotic drugs. This law includes crop criminalization and, now, not only substances. The planting or possession of plants from which illegal substances can be processed is banned. Anyone in possession f these illegal substances without permit will be considered a trafficker. This law modified the Criminal Code to change the expression “narcotic substances” for “drogas estupefacientes” in a legislative process which went on to pass a series of norms which modified, complemented and added to existing Colombian drug legislation. 18 de diciembre 1946

[1946-1950 ref to ] M-.S Gildardo Rivera G Professor Pount, with counseling by the United States, implemented a plan during the Mariano Ospina Pérez presidency to set up marijuana gardens, to which end 1,400,000 seed packages were handed out. The idea was to give the textile industry the boost it needed to overcome its economic recession. The marijuana plants turned did not turn out to be as rich in fiber as expected but had excellent aroma and flavor. (1942) Rivera also mentions the fact that recent investigations reveal that the first coca chewers were the Chorotega (an extinct indigenous community that lived in the Fonseca and Nicoya bays in Nicaragua. Aporte a la historia de la coca en Colombia, 1985 See also Hemp for Victory

[1947] Decreto 896 de 1947 ".This ordinance banned all types of payments, salaries and other, with alcoholic beverages or coca. Jorge Child sustains that this is Colombia’s first Antinarcotics Statute. 11 de marzo de 1947

[1948 ref to ] Atlantic Monthly Press (Book Review) Killing Pablo "The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw By Mark Bowden “There was no more exciting place in South America to be in April 1948 than Bogotá, Colombia. Change was in the air, a static charge awaiting direction. No one knew exactly what it would be, only that it was at hand. It was a moment in the life of a nation, perhaps even a continent, when all of history seemed a prelude. […] Gaitán's murder is where the modern history of Colombia starts.” Mark Bowden : Matar a Pablo Escobar, RBA, 2001

[1949-1951] Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff: Los Kogi: una tribu de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. Colombia, I and II, Bogota. 1949, 1951. "The most accurate and complete account of the religious uses of coca among modern Indians is Reichel-Dolmatoff's report on the significance of coca among the Kogi, a group of Indians of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta which has been sufficiently isolated to retain many tribal traditions. Among the Kogi the use of coca is restricted to the males. After the evening meal, the men either retire to meditate and chew coca or they go to the ceremonial house to chew coca and spend the night dancing, chanting, and having ceremonial conversations with "Los Antiguos." Reichel-Dolmatoff's account gives a clear description of their motives for chewing coca: "Upon the effect of the coca, the Kogi emphasizes in the first place that its consumption brings a certain mental clarity which one ought to take advantage of for ceremonial gatherings and any religious act in general, being conversations, personal rites, or group rites. Evidently the coca causes a euphoric state which lasts for a long period and is prolonged by the gradual consumption of larger and larger quantities. The individual turns into an animated speaker, and says that he feels an agreeable sensation of tingling over all the body and that his memory is considerably refreshed which permits him to speak, sing, and recite during the following hours. In the second place the Kogi say that coca appeases hunger. According to them, however, this never is the object of consuming coca but only an agreeable consequence, seeing that during the ceremonies or ceremonial conversations the consumption of food is prohibited and the assistants ought to fast. Another effect which is attributed to the coca is insomnia. Here again the Kogi see an advantage since the ceremonial conversations should be carried on at night and individuals who can speak and sing for one or several nights without sleep, merit high prestige. The Kogi ideal would be to never eat anything beside coca, to abstain totally from sex, to never sleep, and to speak all of his life of the "Ancients," that is to say, to sing, to dance and to recite." [en Martin]

[1949] UNODC The Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf pages 20-41 /(en mamacoca). At the beginning of September this year the United Nations dispatched a Commission of Enquiry to South America to study certain aspects of two uses to which the leaf of the coca bush is put. Nobody knows for certain for how many hundreds of years the leaves of the coca bush have been chewed in South America. It is probable that the practice was well established before the beginning of the eleventh century and it is certain that coca leaves were chewed during the lifetime of the Inca Empire. Precise explanations for the origin of this age-long habit have not yet been made but it is possible that it owes its beginnings to conditions of life that were always severe, especially in so far as the difficulties of producing enough food were concerned, and that it was used from the start to ameloriate the bodily distress caused ]by the hard conditions endured by the inhabitants of that part of the world. Even today man in those regions is often engaged in a life-long struggle with the forceps of nature for a hare existence, and it is where such conditions continue even in the twentieth century to exist that the habit of chewing the coca leaf is now most widely practised. Such is the most generally admitted explanation of the origin of the custom, but it is emphasized that the possibility of the practice having originally had a considerable sacred or religious aspect, which may indeed still continue to exist in modified forms, should by no means he excluded.[1949]

(The cocólogos point out that there were no scientists on this Commission)

UNODC Commission of Enquiry on the Coca Leaf pages 41-57., “The limitation of the production of the coca leaf, as well as that of opium and other raw materials for the manufacture of narcotics, was discussed during the International Opium Conference held at Geneva from November 1924 to February 1925. … In 1931 the question of the limitation of the production of the coca leaf was again raised during the general discussion at the Conference for the Limitation of the Manufacture of Narcotic Drugs. It was, however, decided that such limitation could not be discussed in view of the Conference's terms of reference. [… ] In April 1949 the Secretary-General received a request from the Government of Bolivia that the Commission of Enquiry should extend its activities, to that country, a request duly considered by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in June 1949. At that time the Commission also re-examined the Secretary-General's plans for the Commission of Enquiry in the light of the financial appropriation which the General Assembly had made for it in the previous November, and decided that the $17,000 provided would hardly he sufficient to allow the Commission of Enquiry to spend enough time in the field to make the thorough study for which its terms of reference provided. As a result of these two new factors in the situation, the matter was again referred to the Economic and Social Council and was considered by that organ in July during its ninth session this summer. The Council agreed with the views of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs as regards the desirability of extending the inquiry to Bolivia and the necessity for making more funds available, and on 23 July, accordingly, adopted a resolution to this effect, the text of which is to he found in the Official Section.(Page 52), January 1949

1950 ref a] Suzanna Reiss "/Policing Development:Andean Drug Control & the Expansion of US Capitalism "The US Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the United Nations, political elites in Peru and Bolivia, policing and public health officials and an array of scientific experts joined together in an effort to implement inter-national drug control in the Andes in the aftermath of World War II. Focusing on the effort to regulate coca commodities (including coca leaves, pharmaceutical cocaine, and Coca-Cola flavoring extracts), this paper ex-amines the intersection of US-directed development policies, policing, and the expanding influence of US capitalism. A seemingly neutral language of science and public health was deployed to rationalize the implementation of a regulatory framework which selectively criminalized sites of coca cultivation, production and consumption. Drug control became a tool for silencing political dissent while “modernizing” the economy. Indigenous Aymara and Quechua peoples’ customary uses of the coca leaf were at-tacked in conjunction with efforts to limit the “legitimate” market to raw material exports destined for North American manufacturers. Influenced by longstanding colonial beliefs in Indian cultural and racial inferiority, officials labeled traditional consumption “addiction,” and advocated radically transforming the living and laboring habits of Indian peoples as part of a broader effort to create a productive wage-labor force.” Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 23, No 2 ,Spring 2009

[1950-1960 _ref a] Andrés Estefane: Interview with Paul Gootenberg (bibliography), Professor New York Stony Brook University, Chile and the History of Cocaine: Chile occupies a special place in the history of cocaine since it was in the business before the Colombian and Mexican cartels The groups that headed the cocaine networks from 1950 to 1960 were based in Chile, at a time when cocaine use, which had started in Santiago in the 1930s, was well-known. The only real competition in the business was the Cubans, until Fidel Castro shut it down and the traffickers moved to Miami. Attacks by the BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs) and Interpol only served to make the business all that more competitive, decentralized and uncontrollable. When Pinochet came to power the US convinced him that an antidrug campaign would please the US and Pinochet put his repressive apparatus to the task. It is precisely this repression which dirve the cocaine traffic to Colombia. . Chile y la historia de la cocaína: entrevista con Paul Gootenberg, Red Seca, May 29, 2012

[Cold War ref to] Al Profit: The French Connection | The roots of America’s Dirty War on Drugs You’ve probably heard about the “The French Connection”, the heroin pipeline that supplied the streets of America for 25 years, generated billions in profits for the Mafia and Kingpins like Frank Lucas, and helped destroy entire communities across the United States through addiction and crime. While there’s been many movies and books about the “French Connection”, this is the true story of one the biggest criminal conspiracies in history and how the US government helped start it, support it, and protect it. […] Our story begins as the 2nd World War ends. The Nazis and Japanese are defeated, but the Iron Curtain is falling and the cold war is beginning. A massive new US intelligence apparatus is created, composed of numerous organizations, chief among them the Central Intelligence Agency. […]After the war drug use in America was at an all-time low, due to disruptions in the supply chain during the war and the economic downturn of the Depression. Cocaine, morphine, and heroin use had all declined drastically from their peak in the 1920’s, and only a small segment of America’s population is indulging in drugs. […] So in the late 40’s the U.S. government had a real opportunity to possibly eliminate hard drugs as an American social problem. Instead, the U.S. government helped, Asian, European, and American gangsters build an extremely sophisticated and global industry for heroin that is still going strong today, 70 years later.

[Cold War ref to] Alexandre Marchant The French Connection: Between Myth and Reality ““In the 1970s, the term “The French Connection” referred to what had been the Marseille-based main global heroin network, a centralized network, protected by the public authorities, and broken up, in the end, by effective Franco-American police collaboration.[…] From the post-war period until the mid-1970s, the French Connection, run by the Corsican Mafia in Marseille, was the main global network for the manufacture and trafficking of heroin. Morphine base, extracted from the opium from Turkish poppy fields, was refined and transformed into heroin in laboratories hidden away in Provence’s hinterland.. The drug was then cleverly hidden in false-bottomed suitcases, ships’ cargo holds, or inside the panels of large American cars and dispatched to the huge illegal US market..” Institute for Political Social Science (ISP—Institut des sciences sociales du politique), CNRS, 94235, Cachan, France, 2012

[1951] Decreto 1858 de 1951“Inspired by dangerous and authoritarian criterion, this regulation of Law 48 of 1936 which punished marijuana users and growers by relegating them to agricultural colonies and giving mayors and ‘judicial or prevention police judges’ the authority to decide on these conducts. Under this law people who grow, process, trade or in any way use or induce others to use marijuana are also considered villains. [Valencia, 1986]

[1954] UNODC Legal Trade in Narcotics in 1952 “Only Colombia and Indonesia, which are not the largest producers, send the Board figures of their production which, in 1952, amounted to 198 tons in Colombia and 17 tons in Indonesia. These two countries have also accounted for the quantities so produced: in Colombia, the leaves are chewed by the indigenous population; those produced in Indonesia are exported to cocaine-manufacturing countries.”

[1955-1975 ref a] Adolfo León Atehortúa Cruz y Diana Marcela Rojas Rivera The Vietnam War is first and foremost fuel for drug use and trafficking in the United States. It’s not the sole and sufficient cause. It simply became a phenomenon that propelled mass heroin and marijuana drug use which required new suppliers for a growing network. It should be noted that there was a pre-existing heroin market leftover from the Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky Bugsy Siegel and Frank Costello’s illegal whisky market way before the Colombians came on the scene. El narcotráfico en Colombia. Pioneros y capos "

[1956] UNODC Legal Trade in Narcotics in 1954 Estimated World Requirements of Narcotic Drugs in 1956c) Coca Leaves “Total world production of coca leaves in 1954 amounted approximately to 13,113 tons. This total is shared very unequally among the four producing countries. Peru heads the list with 9,907 tons, followed by Bolivia with 3,000 tons, Colombia with 180 tons and Indonesia with 26 tons. Cultivation of the coca shrub, which had been started again in the Chinese province of Taiwan (Formosa), yielded an initial crop of 200 kg. in 1953, but no harvest took place in 1954. In Peru the amount harvested rose from 9,502 tons in 1953 to 9,907 tons in 1954.

[1960] UNODC The work of the Permanent Central Opium Board in 1959 Pages: 37 to 38 “Coca leaves. - None of the three main coca-leaf producing and consuming countries, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, have supplied the Board with the relevant statistics for 1958. Their reported total production amounted to 13,000 tons in 1954 and again in 1957. By comparison, the quantity harvested in the other two known producing countries, Indonesia and the Republic of China, is negligible, amounting respectively to only 8 tons and 1.5 tons in 1958. Medical requirements of coca leaves - that is to say, their use in the licit manufacture of cocaine - fell from 588 tons in 1954 to 248 tons in 1957 and 205 tons in 1958. In 1957 they represented only 2 per cent of licit non-medical consumption, and the proportion must be even smaller in 1958.[…] Cocaine. - Cocaine consumption decreased by one-quarter in the past five years (from 2 tons in 1954 to 1.5 ton in 1958). Production shows a similar though less regular trend. In 1958 it was about the same as consumption.[...]The use of synthetic narcotic drugs as analgesics has grown. Although it is not possible to follow the trends of synthetic antitussives it can be said that their use is negligible in comparison with that of antitussives derived from opium.”

[1961] Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs- This treaty consolidated the 9 treaties that preceded it, Colombia was not present and was not a risk country. [enmendada 24 de marzo de 1972][sesión 24 de enero-25 de marzo de 1961]

[1961 ref a ] Bernardo Pérez Salazar Illicit Drugs, Transnational Crime and Governance in a Globalized World – It is surprising to note that the 1961 Single Convention covers over 100 substances form useful plants, classified into four lists, each one the lists subject to different protocols while substances such as alcohol, tobacco and psychotropic substances that are widely used in the West managed to avoid being included in these lists. Drogas ilícitas, crimen transnacional y gobernabilidad local en el mundo globalizado: agosto 2004

[1961] UNODC Present state of the coca-leaf habit in Colombia Jorge Bejarano (Pages: 1 to 5) Over ten years have elapsed since action was first taken against coca-leaf chewing. The coca habit occurs locally among a few indigenous groups; geographically, it is found in the areas of Colombia where the coca bush has been cultivated. It is the leaves of this bush which are chewed.[…]It is not necessary to revert in this report to the history of the coca habit, which dates back to the period of Manco Capac, the founder of the powerful Inca tribe which carved out a vast empire. There exists a sufficient body of literature and research on the subject, the chief interest of which resides in its sociological and human aspects.

[...] For us, it is evidence of the great ingenuity of man in discovering plants and substances which can provide him with abnormal sensations and in grasping the secret of the chemical processes for the extraction of the necessary elements by which he could produce that state of factitious happiness and euphoria that is generated by drunkenness or the effects of alkaloids.

[..] This absence of a reference to the historical background will, however, be more than compensated if we note the serious concern now being shown by the governments and international organizations which are studying the necessary measures to eradicate a habit that has a demonstrably adverse effect on physical and mental health.

[..] Nor is it necessary for the purposes of this report on the present state of the problem of coca addiction in Colombia to describe once again the mental, psychological, economic, social and pathological phenomena produced by coca addiction, for they have been described so often before with an abundance of detail. The fact that, after centuries, these phenomena are still present is the reason for the campaigns carried out both in Peru and in Colombia by health experts, sociologists and chemists. 1961/01/01

[1964 ref a] Medófilo Medina : Can a parallel be drawn between Colombia’s current violence and the violence suffered in the mid twentieth century? A comparative analysis of violence in Colombia during the periods 1945-1950 and 1984-1988 and how they tie in with other phenomena such as economic development , unionism, Gaitanism and narcotic trafficking. Bases urbanas de la violencia en Colombia 1945-1950 1984-1988 "El (Tomado historiacritica.uniandes.edu.co), 19 de marzo de 1988

[1964-1992] "We are the nerve of a revolutionary movement that was born in 1948, Ever since 1948, the large landholders , cattle ranchers, large industrialist, landholding institutional politicians (gamonales) and those that trade in violence have used their power against us, peasants from the Sur de Tolima, Huila and Cauca,. We have been victims of a policy of “blood and fire” advocated and implemented by the oligarchy in power. We fight for an agrarian policy that would give the latifuindios (extensive landholdings) to the peasants. This is why, today July 20, 1964, we are guerrilla fighters fighting for an (the following) Agrarian Program. Claves territoriales para la paz, 2001 Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar: Programa Agrario FARC_EP

[1964 ref a] Pedro Rivas Nieto y Pablo Rey García Self-Defence Groups and Paramilitarism in Colombia (1964-2006) abstract: “This paper studies the phenomenon of the Colombian paramilitarism from its formal emergence, in the sixties, up to its formal disappearance, in 2006. This analysis comprises the evolution and the relations with diverse social groups that constituted the paramilitary movements, specially ranchers, drugs traffickers and the Armed Forces. Special emphasis is given to the change produced among the “self-defence groups” -legitimate defence supported by the State- and the paramilitary groups, whose purpose in the beginning was to put an endo to the insurgency, but finally both of them ended up dedicated to criminal activities.” Las autodefensas y el paramilitarismo en Colombia (1964-2006) Artículos Confines, 25 de septiembre 2007

UNODC Native hallucinogenic drugs piptadenias “Evidence of the use of Piptadenias exists from the time of the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World. The geographical area in which these plants are found embraces the West Indies, Brazil, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Paraguay and the northern and central parts of Argentina. Throughout this vast zone the aborigines were familiar with the properties of Piptadenias, of which they made use by inhaling the powder obtained from the seeds. The variety of names which they bestowed on this plant can be gathered from the synonyms listed in the preceding paragraph.”, Marcel Granier-Doyeux Pages: 29 to 38 1965/01/01

[1965] UNODC /INCB 'Metabolism of Cocaine (pages 11-17) This aspect of the cocal leaf problems was only touched upon lightly, without any definite conclusions being reached, by the Commission of Inquiry on the Coca Leaf in 1950.. The Consultative Group on Coca Leaf Problems which met at Lima in 1962. did not consider this aspect. The United Nations bodies concerned were chiefly interested in studying the problem in its medical, social, economic or administrative aspects. Our study is divided into two parts: Part 1: Physical and chemical study of cocaine and its hydrolysis products. Part 2: Probable metabolism of cocaine in the habitual coca leaf chewer. Fernando Montesinos 1965/01/01

[1965] UNODC INCB Giver of delight or Liberator of sin: Drug use and "addiction" in Asia: Pages: 1 to 11” If one seeks to understand the use and abuse of mind altering drugs in a given culture or society, it is desirable to view the phenomenon within the broadest possible context, a context which will reveal the roles played by a particular drug, the inter-relationship with the use of other drugs, and the complex socio-psychological forces causing, and being affected by the drug use. In a like manner, narrow, parochial or ethnocentric attitudes of individual commentators, specialists, agencies and countries can benefit from an understanding of the drug abuse picture in other less publicised, less frequented areas of the world. Therefore, let us examine a vast area of the world, Asia, which uses and produces vast quantities of narcotics (opiates) and cannabis for varied historical, sociological, and economic reasons. An understanding of the Asian "addiction" pattern along with a study of that region's attempts to change and control the use of these drugs, can illuminate not only the Asian "delight or sin" but also related situations in America, Africa and Europe..” Joel Fort, M.D. 1965/01/01

[1965 ref a] U.S. Congress: Marihuana-hashish epidemic and its impact on United States security The traffic in, and abuse of, marihuana products has taken a more serious turn in the last two or three years than either the courts, the news media, or the public is aware. The shift is clearly toward the abuse of stronger, more dangerous forms of the drug which renders much of what has been said in the 1960's about the harmlessness of its use obsolete. The epidemic began at Berkeley University at the time of the famous 1965 "Berkeley Uprising." Not only was pot-smoking embraced as a symbolic rejection of the establishment, but, together with the "dirty speech movement," the right to pot became an integral part of the catalogue of demands of the uprising. From Berkeley, the marihuana epidemic spread rapidly throughout the American campus community. Then it spread down into the high schools and junior high schools — and within the last year or two it has begun to invade the grade schools. It has also spread into the ranks of professional society and of the bluecollar workers, so that all sectors of our society are today affected by the epidemic. Today it is estimated that there are some millions of regular marihuana users in the country, and the evidence indicates that they are graduating rapidly to the stronger hemp drugs, hashish and liquid hashish .”, Hearings before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-third Congress, second session [-Ninety-fourth Congress, first session] : /archive org[1974]"

[1968] Charles Paz, Jean-Francois Cabral The Meaning of May 1968 “What’s important is that the action took place, when everybody believed it to be unthinkable. If it took place this time, it can happen again Jean-Paul Sartre (1968) “In May-June 1968, the mobilisation of an initially very limited fraction of youth was capable of unleashing the biggest general strike in France’s history. […] What remains of 1968? This major event of the class struggle profoundly changed French society, while having significant effects beyond France’s frontiers: it is one of the key dates of the recomposition of the European workers’ movement at the end of the 20th century. There are profound reasons for this.” International Viewpoint June 14, 2008

[1968 ref to] Florence Thomas "Your name tastes like grass": I met you in the prodigious decade that led to May 68 in Paris when a whole generation of poets and singers were singing the praises of your ephemeral but delicious merits for the soul but also for the body. ..I heard about you from Janis Yoplin, George Moustaki, Juan Manuel Serrat and others. And I met you golden, grown in the sacred and millenary soils of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. In short, the best weed in the world…. Tell me, who from my generation didn’t share an after-dinner join once in a while with friends? Tu nombre me sabe a hierba. El Tiempo, Oct/2002

UNODC "/Present Problems of Drug Dependence in Switzerland Pages: 1 to 6 “The growing abuse of hypnotics, analgesics and stimulants induced the Swiss Conference of Sanitary Officials in 1965 to order a national inquiry on the state of drug dependence in Switzerland. The results of the inquiry would serve as a basis for the prophylactic measures called for. ..[...] In Switzerland, as well as in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Sweden, the abuse of "mild" analgesics (headache remedies) has increased since the Second World War. Recourse is had to these analgesics above all in urban environments, and especially by working women and housewives. In spite of the widespread use of tranquillizers in Switzerland only occasional cases of addiction to these drugs are seen. …On the strength of the results of all-Swiss inquiry into the incidence of drug dependence the Commission proposed the following measures to the Swiss authorities: All hypnotics and stimulants should be available on compulsory prescription only; 1- The packings should bear a warning against abuse; 2-Advertising to the general public should be forbidden; 3-The public should be continually informed of the dangers of drug dependence; 4-Continuous prospective research should be undertaken to detect new trends in drug dependence in order to be able to take specific prophylactic measures.” P. Kielholz1970/01/01

[1970] The first arrest for toad possession Bufus Alvarius_was in Califormia in 1970 /// Krysrtle Cole: “According to representatives of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, David S. Theiss had been extracting the toad venom from his toad, drying it out, and smoking it. They did not catch him distributing the toad venom, although he was in possession of it. The venom contains the inactive constituent Bufotenine which is an illegal Schedule I substance. The venom also contains the active constituent5-Me0-DM which is currently legal and unscheduled.. Theiss was also caught in possession of tree bark that contains DMT , most likely Mimosa Hostilis. They did not charge him with possession of the tree bark because he had not extracted the DMT from it. Although they did send it to their lab for further chemical analysis. Possession of both the toads and the tree bark are legal; they are only illegal when you extract the illegal substances from them. NeuroSoup July 19, 2011

[1970] Decreto 1136 de 1970 This ordinance is the Statue for Social Protection. It refers to (frenocomios) hospitals for the insane for those who cause public disorder, beggars and (toxicómanos) addicts. Whoever is found to perturb public calm as a result of a state of chronic intoxication produced by alcohol, or mental illness, or narcotics and hallucinogenic consumption, will be subjected to medical treatment with or without admittance to a clinic, insanity facility (casa de reposo) or hospital until his full rehabilitation is attained. 19 de julio 1970

[1971] Remedios de la Peña Regué The coca habit is one of the most important problems that exists in the countries of America whose natives have surrendered themselves to this vice; severe addiction which ravages and might be one of the main reasons for which over 7 million Indians, mestizos and whites in South America are submerged by a state of apathy and indifference, loss of self-confidence in their own strength, without any linage of the problems and without stimulus to adopt material changes, progress, to which they contribute as they can, like human machines…Consideraciones sobre el uso de la Coca la época colonial y republicana,. Revista Española de Antropología Americana, Madrid, 1971

[1971]Max Singer The Vitality of Mythical Numbers, If we are to believe the figures, it would seem that the amount of property stolen by addicts is so enormous that city of New York would no longer exist as it would have been completely robbed by addicts to pay for their fix. 1971.

[1972 ref to] In Colombia, the First Addictology (toxicomanía) Seminar was convened by the Family Welfare Institute (Bienestar Familiar) in September 1972. It was attended by some of the members of the Criminal Code Drafting Commission. Some of the recommendations including the Government’s, were that they review the criminal legislation that represses smuggling, production, trafficking, supply and other activities related with illicit drugs or narcotic and hallucinogenic substances. (Hincapie [28-30 de septiembre 1972], 1989

[1972] The Colombian National Police held the First International Narcotics Seminar – Jurist Reyes Echandía comments on how the terrors of the time, the drug addict who is a sick person, the need to make lists of the people involved in growing, processing and trafficking in drugs and the proposal to adopt a Single Statute which would globally cover, in an integrated and harmonious manner, the whole drug issue, the addict or 'pharmacodependent’s' rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Comentario de Reyes Echandía [Bogotá, 14-17 de noviembre de 1972] (By the 1970s it was no longer a matter of saving the poor Indian but the urban user, “our” children).

1973] Ley 1988 de 1973 This law mentions the ‘personal dose’ “If the amount of the drug or substance that the person has on him corresponds to a "personal dose" (for personal use), he will be sentenced to month to a 2-year arrest and a 200-1,000 pesos fine. Incarceration for growing is form 2 to 8 years and a 100,000 peso fine. This law abolished sending people to agricultural colonies. [Hincapie, 1989]

1973] Ley 17 de 1973 Ratifies the 1961 Single Convention. .Passes norms that represess 'habits related to drugs or substances'… . crop planting is criminalized. The coca habit will be banned within 25 years..[21 de noviembre 1973]

1974] Decreto 1118 de 1974 This ordinance is formally known as Colombia’s first National Narcotics Statute. It regulates Ley 17 of 1973.. It states that the .’personal dose’ should be determined through medical-judicial assessments taking into consideration substance quality , quantity and the syndicated person’s history and medical situation . Vásquez Chacón, [1982 p. 33] holds that thus possesion becomes a crime. This ordinance was repealed by Law 30 of 1986 wich basically upheld the right to a personal dose (amount for personal use) as confirmed by Constitutional Court C-221 1994 Ruling , July 8, 1974

[197_ref to] Fabio Castillo The marijuana boom -There were basically two means of being part of the marijuana traffic, growers, who almost always received their payment in advance, who were paid when receiving the seeds, no bank loan issues and no bondsman requirements. The second way is the people called marimberos who are in charge of transporting, selling and supplying the marijuana in the States. It was said, that for every shipment, 16 to 20 people in the Atlantic Coast o were involved and benefitted economically. Los Jinetes de la Cocaína, La Bonanza Marimbera, Editorial Documentos Periodísticos, 1987_ En 2001-Derechos Humanos Equipo Nizkor Bogotá, 18 de noviembre 1987

[1974-1981] Jorge Orlando Melo: Mass marijuana exports went on until approximately 1981 when, towards its last 10 years, it overlapped with the first cocaine trade phase. Their experience with marijuana gave the Colombians the operational elements, market knowledge and contacts and routes which they used in 1973/1975 in the first attempts to refine and export the cocaine processed in Colombia. This sets the prevailing patterns for the cocaine –trade scheme. Colombians imported coca paste from Peru and Bolivia,; the elements needed for processing from Europe; the weapons to keep up the business were brought through Panama form the United States. The coca paste was originally refined in labs in urban centers but, by the end of the 1980s, they were moved to rural zones, even to the jungle. . At first, the relatively large part of the earnings had to be repatriated to Colombia but soon the earnings were not so important and most of the money spent on cocaine in the U.S. stayed in the United States or in financial centers in Europe or the Antilles. Narcotráfico y democracia: La experiencia colombiana, 1999

[1974 /198_ ref a] Lina Britto A Trafficker’s Paradise The “War On Drugs” and the New Cold War in Colombia, This paper shows how the marijuana boom in the Colombian Caribbean and the military suppression of it under the “Two Peninsulas” campaign ushered in a new era of inter-state and state-society relations between Colombia and the United States"". Historia Contemporánea y problemas del siglo XX | Volumen 1, Año 1, 19 abril 2010

[1974 ref to] Mauricio García Durán, Vera Grabe Loewenherz, Otty Patiño Hormaza:M-19‘s Journey from Armed Struggle to Democratic Politics:Striving to Keep the Revolution Connected to the People: "M-19 was not the first guerrilla movement to emerge in Colombia. As early as the time of La Violencia of the 1950s 1 , guerrilla movements emerged as a form of self-defence amongst several sectors of the population, especially peasants. Later, revolutionary guerrilla movements emerged in the heat of the Cuban Revolution, advocating a radical transformation of social and political life. The first generation of guerrilla movements appeared in the 1960s: in 1964, the National Liberation Army ( Ejército de Liberación Nacional , ELN ) with a pro-Cuban direction; between 1964 and 1966 2 , the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ( Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia , FARC ) with a pro-Soviet direction; and in 1965, the Popular Liberation Army ( Ejército Popular de Liberación , EPL ) with a pro-China direction. […] In the 1970s and 1980s, a second generation of guerrilla movements emerged: in 1973, M-19, with a more nationalistic direction; in 1981, the Quintín Lame Armed Movement ( Movimiento Armado Quintín Lame ) as an indigenous self-defence group; and in 1983, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party ( Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, PRT ) as a result of acute divisions between the Colombian Marxist Leninist groups in the 1970s. Other fronts and dissident groups formed in those years were the Ernesto Rojas Commandos (Comandos Ernesto Rojas ), the Manuel Garnica Front ( Frente Manuel Garnica ), the Workers’ Self-Defense Groups ( Autodefensa Obrera , ADO ) and the Socialist Renovation Movement ( Corriente de Renovación Socialista , CRS). "Berghof Transitions Series No. 1, Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management , 2008

1974 ref to] MamaCoca : Basuco comes on the scene. The cocaine alkaloid (beyond coca) can be consumed in several forms: a white crystalline powder (salts) or in rocks (crystals): basic coca paste (BCP) – a cocaine sulphate which would be the equivalent of the crude cocaine of the end of the 19th century which was a semi-processed cocaine base- and hydrochloride cocaine. Most authors place the emergence of smokeable cocaine in the first half of the 1970s (see 1974) in cocaine- processing areas. Initially, it appeared as basuco (basura de la coca = coca trash) one of the steps that leads to hydrochloride cocaine processing. Basuco is the least refined product of them all, the one that contains the most impurities; BCP involves more precursors than basuco but less than cocaine. Hydrochloride cocaine is not smokeable since it volatilizes when subjected to high temperatures but it is mainly inhaled and can be used via injection since it is water-soluble.

[..] Currently, cocaine is adulterated not only by street vendors but also directly in the laboratories where it is processed. One of the most worrisome adulterating substances is Levamisole, a medication used to treat parasitic worm infection in animals. Today it is almost impossible to find pure cocaine or cocaine that is not cut with dangerous adulterating substances that are generally the main health issue for users (particularly IDU) who have no idea what they are consuming. Thus users' demands for drug testing facilities. This 'ignorance' also distorts estimates since, when estimating tons consumed, this variable is rarely taken into consideration. Another problem with drug estimates (apart from the difficulty of measuring an illegal venture and the tendency to conveniently create to manipulate) is that cocaine use measurements are lumped together with basuco/BCP smoking estimates. These are far form being the same drug. Basuco, is the Colombian antecedent of crack and freebase. Freebasing is wafting in cocaine during the process of making crack. Crack is made by cooking cocaine with bicarbonate soda or processing with ammonia.

[..] The basuco market in Colombia is said to be a direct result of a time when drug laws made it hard to bring in the precursors needed to make cocaine and when smuggling cocaine out became more and more difficult. So, people in the cocaine labs who had discovered basuco could be smoked, started opening a domestic market . There are those who believe (Anthony Henman) that cocaine sulphate was smoked in Peru in the 19th century when Merck taught the Peruvians to make crude cocaine to export to Europe instead of the fragile coca leaves. Currently, what seems to be happening is that those same precursor controls are pushing cocaine processing to other countries where certain less-strict precursor controls make setting up cocaine-processing labs interesting ventures. This means that the coca paste, which is still made from the only currently existing coca-growing countries, the Andean countries, is the in export product; with all the dangers this implies for expanding these other countries' domestic markets for smokeable cocaines. .[2017]

[1970s ref to] Bruce Bagley The Colombian Connection: In Deborah Pacini and Christine Franquemont(editors): Coca and Cocaine Effects on People and Policy in Latin America : “The Impact of Drug Traffic on Colombia: “Over the latter part of the 1970s and particularly in the early 1980s, the use of basuco, a form of coca paste that is smoked rather than inhaled, has increased in Colombia. The reasons behind this increase are not at all clear. Some evidence indicates that the US recession and the decreased ability to buy luxury items created a surplus co­caine market in Colombia which could not be disposed of in other markets. Hence Colombians began pushing the partially refined paste used in basuco more than in the past, at lower prices than in the past. Another theory con­tends that the spread of cocaine production in Colombia from 1980 on spurred a number of experiments in a variety of areas to develop different types of cocaine made from coca grown on different soils. Many of those experiments did not, if I can use this phrase, "fall on fertile ground" and hence produced less than adequate cocaine. It is this lower quality cocaine, the theory suggests, that is dumped in Colombia. […]

[..] There is probably a bit of truth to both theories, but nonetheless the increasing use and, in this case, abuse of cocaine in certain segments of Colombian society is an undeniable reality, particularly in the context of the urban poor in Medellin, where recession has caused high levels of unemployment. Many teenagers and others have been thrown into idleness which has resulted in drug abuse. The same is true in Colombia's other major cities -Bogot5, Cali, Barranquilla and others. Colombia is now increasingly preoccupied with the social prob­lem drug consumption represents for the country internally.

[…] The exact numbers of individuals using basuco in Colombia are not known. The US State Department and DEA tend to make much of this par­ticular problem because it fits into their analysis -that is, it is no longer simply an American problem but also a Colombian problem. While there is no solid evidence to indicate exactly how many people are involved, we're probably talking about 100,000 to even 200,000 people. There also has not been a major effort to systematically study the degree to which drug abuse is a problem in Colombian cities. One of the reasons for the lack research, and subsequently, knowledge about this topic is that such an in­vestigation might undermine US policy. This, however, would be a ma-or reason for conducting greater research in order to find out exactly the dimensions of the problem. It seems to me that there are few people who have attempted to do that, and funding is limited to do so in most areas of Colombia right now. Proceedings of the conference "The Coca Leaf and its Derivatives –Biology, Society and Politics Latin American Studies Program Cornell University and Cultural Survival Report, The idea of the conference and text was "to look behind the headlines on coca and cocaine, present the current state of knowledge about the coca leaf end its chemical derivatives, and examine what is going on in the coca producing regions of Latin America". [April 25-26 , 1985]
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[1975 ref to] Chantal Collin: Switzerland’s Drug Policy “This paper will mainly focus on Switzerland’s federal drug policy, which aims to harmonize the various drug strategies of the cantons, and on the 1951 Narcotics Act (which was revised in 1975 and in 1995).Political and Social Affairs Division Prepared for the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs (Canada) 14 January 2002

[1975] Luis Cañon M.: In 1975 Carlos Lehder started hanging around in Medellin. He had just recently come out of a U.S. prison and said he had made a lot of contacts “up there”. He only peddled small amounts of drugs. In the Connecticut Penitentiary, Lehder had met George Jung, a gringo delinquent sentenced to 4 years for taking part in a marihuana street –dealing network. In August 1977, Ledher y Jung met with Barry Kane, a lawyer and a pilot, and Kane flew a small plane from Nassau to Medellin, where he loaded it with 250 kilos of coke, mainly belonging to Escobar and the Ochoas. He landed his cargo in Florida and distributed it all over Florida and this is how the Cocaine Express was inaugurated, the beginning of the first coke shipments by plane. Now, a ton of coke worth a 10 million dollars could be carried on a 4-hour flight. This was a step forward towards industrializing the cocaine trade for the new narco generation with the feared Pablo Escobar at its head. "El Patrón Vida y muerte de Pablo Escobar, Planeta, 1994

[1976] José Francisco Socarras "Pharmacodependence in Colombia" – In general, the country is a large drug consumer, up to now still just medical drugs. The peasant prefers vitamin pills to eating fruit and vegetables from a home garden. People abuse of pills such as aspirin for example. Pharmacies and drugstores sell medicine without medical prescriptions. As concerns, substances that generate ‘pharmacodependence’, official data and controlled surveys indicate wide use of alcohol, tobacco, and tranquilizers to a lesser degree. Coca leaves and yajé, (together wit other plants mentioned) are exclusively for indigenous use. Marihuana use has been expanding for the past 10 years, particularly among senior high school students or university students. There is, to a lesser degree, use of stimulants (Benzedrine), inhalants, barbiturates, hallucinogenic mushrooms and LSD, the latter two very little. With the sole exception of alcohol, tobacco and barbiturate tranquilizers, the rest of the products are legally banned. Among those regulated we include those with known medical uses (opiates, barbiturates and tranquilizers) which can only be sold with medical prescription. "La farmacodependencia en Colombia . Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la educación, la ciencia y la cultura (Unesco) 1976]

[1976] Decreto 701 de 1976 …that as concerns conducts related to narcotics, ..it is necessary to distinguish between those that criminalize the making and trading in substances that produce physical and (psychic) mental dependence from those that limit themselves to simply possession for personal consumption. ..That this latter procedural phenomenon foresees special consequences and as such requires a precise and adequate treatment of the evidence which in practices brings about certain technical difficulties. April 9, 1976

[1977] /UNODC: Herbicidal treatments for control of Cannabis sativa L. / (en mamacoca) “In order to test herbicides for the destruction of illicit stands of cannabis ( Cannabis sativa L.) a series of commercially available herbicides were sprayed on glasshouse-grown plants having 2 to 6 leaves. The following herbicides caused complete kill or severe injury to cannabis plants: (a) herbicides with root and foliage activity - ametryn, atrazine, metribuzin, prometryn, terbutryne, diuron, fluometuron, linuron, methabenzthiazuron, phenobenzuron, ethofumesate, karbutilate, methazole and oxadiazon; and (b) foliar-acting herbicides with brief or no soil persistence - amitrole, bentazon, 2,4-D, diquat + paraquat, glyphosate and phenmedipham.[…] his research was conducted under contract with the U.S. Agriculture Dept., which provided also the seeds for experimental cannabis growing. I wish to thank Dr. W. A. Gentner, A.R.S., U.S.D.A., Beltsville, Maryland, USA, who was sponsor of the research programme, for his advice and help. […] The experimental work was made at the Newe Ya'ar Experiment Station on cannabis grown according to special authorization from the Israeli Ministry of Health. I wish to express my appreciation to Ing. Agr. G. Herzlinger and the technical staff of the Division of Weed Research, for their assistance.”January 1977

[1978 ref to ] Starting in the 1950s , many of the anti-drug ordinances which still constitute the backbone of Colombia’s narcotics’ legislation (particularly as of the late 1970s) were passed under States of Emergency declared to control public-order unrest. /// Mauricio García Villegas “A Country under the State of Exception” “A good part of these norms have been legalized by Congress thus making the Executive into a de facto legislator”.Un país de estados de excepción, El Espectador, 11 de octubre 2008 /

[1978 - 1982 ]Turbay Aayala 's Presidency -Drug policy has always been a bargaining chip. Much like Pinochet in Chile [Gootenberg, 2012 interview] who, for the sake of repression, negotiated counter narcotics measures with the US; Julio César Turbay Ayala, negotiated his repressive National Security Satute by taking advantage of U.S interests to militarize the Drug War in Colombia and set the precedent for chemical eradication which went from experimenting with different toxins in 1978 to an all-out aerial chemical war which lasted until 2015 and stil ongoing with, once agiain, ground spraying of chemicals. A good number of antinarcotics drug ordinances were passed then and set the framework for "drug" measures that have conditioned Colombia's war and dificulty to attain peace.

] [1978 ref to] César Torres Del Río Seguridad Nacional y narcotráfico : The Security Statute under Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978-1982), never to be forgotten due to its sequel of tortures, forced disappearances, and arbitrary imprisonments, was the judicial-military instrument that gave being to National Security Doctrine expreince in our country. In 1978 , DEA Director stated that the narcotics traffic in Colombia was a national security issue. en "Grandes Agresiones Contra Colombia", Ediciones Roca [septiembre de 1994]

[1978] Letter from the Colombia’s INDERENA (Institute for Renewable Natural Resoruces and Environment / Natural Instituto Nacional de los Recursos Naturales Renovables y del Ambiente) Señores Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes Ministerio de Justicia - It has come to our attention from news in the media that the Ministry of Justice is considering the possibility of using aerial spraying with herbicides on large swaths of land. The news refers to using defoliants as a means to destroy marijuana crops. […] We have waited with great concern for the Ministry to officially notify this institute as the legal entity in charge of protecting renewable resources and the environment; resources and environment which can be severely affected both by the means used and the products applied.

[…] We believe that the government has the compulsory duty to abide by Article 28 of the Renewable Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Code and carry out a prior ecological and environmental study of the areas which it plans to spray in order to make the necessary provisions so that later on the State cannot be blamed for its lack of foresight in the possible occurrence of alterations or environmental deterioration which might prove hazardous to human health or for the resources, such as air, water, soils and fauna, which are essential to all economic activity.

[…] Motivated by the same aspiration to serve the community, which inspires you, and compelled by the duty to protect our renewable natural resources, I kindly request that you provide us with the antecedents, studies and other information related to the project to which the media has referred. Bogotá, 19 de junio de 1978

[1978] Public Law 95-384— Sept. 26, 1978 To amend the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act to authorize international security assistance programs for fiscal year1 979, and for other purposes. “Assistance authorized by this chapter may not be made available or used for any program involving the spraying of a herbicide to eradicate marihuana plants if the use of that herbicide is likely to cause serious harm to the health of persons who may use or consume the sprayed marihuana. …” September 26, 1978

[1978] Decreto 2144 de octubre de 1978 State of Siege (Emergency) By means of which measures are decreed to re-establish public order . /// By which antinarcotics measures are militarized and Fulminating Operation (“Operación Fulminante”) is launched from 1978 to 1980 in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and Sierra de Perijá. [4 de octubre de 1978]

[1978 ref to] Juan Gabriel Tokatlian: The United States and Illegal Crops in Colombia: The Tragic Mistake of Futile Fumigation, -How Fumigation Began in Colombia: "During the administration of President Julio César Turbay Ayala (1978-1982), Washington began putting pressure on the Colombian government to use chemicals for eradicating marijuana crops, especially in La Guajira on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. By 1978, Colombia had become the number one producer and exporter of marijuana to the United States. Of the 10,000 tons introduced into the US during that year, between 60 and 65 percent was supplied by Colombian traffickers. At the time it was estimated that Colombia had between 25,000 and 30,000 hectares planted with marijuana.3 During the administration of President Jimmy Carter (1976-1980), interdiction and eradication were the two keynotes governing international anti-drug policy.”, Center for Latin American Studies, University of California, Berkeley, June 2003

[1978] El tiempo Giving free rein to use marihuana, the Bogtoá High Court (Tribunal Superior de Bogotá) acquitted a woman for her therapeutic use of marihuana for her arthritis - “Vía libre al uso de marihuana Magistrado Pantaleón Mejía Garzón. [6 de diciembre de 1978]

[1979] Alberto Lleras Camargo (president 1958-1962) Sobre The Colombian Connection The Time Magazine article -"The Colombia Connection"- which accords us the dubious honor of ‘narcotizing’, poisoning and corrupting millions of North Americans, is making its way to all of our country's and Latin America’s archives, specialized computers and information sources ,and will continue being used for the coming 10 years or more in universities, schools, junior high and, wherever anyone wants to know what happens in Colombia, war and drugs will taint our countrymen’s reputuation for the years to come. ... Columna en El Tiempo febrero de 1979 publicada en "El Malpensante" No. 25 , 31 de octubre 2000

Ernesto Samper Pizano, Hernando Ruíz, Annett Pearson, Bernardo Gaitán Mahecha y Norman Zinberg Marihuana Legalization- Customs are law . With the economist Ernesto Samper at its head, the Association of Colombia Financial Institutions (ANIF) published this book which proposed a formula for exercising State control over marijuana production in Colombia, ]: "La legalización de la Marihuana" Serie Estudios Fondo Editorial de la ANIF , June 1980

1979] National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF) convenes a symposium on marijuana in March. A series of filed studies on marijuana crops, underground economy and aerial spraying were presented. Accordingly, a legalization proposal was here submitted. Samper proposed: … the country should study marihuana legalization as a serious alternative for its regulation. ...Legalization does not imply leaving marijuana to its own devices, rather it means framing its cultivation, commerce and consumption within the legal framework that guides our economy, our society and our State. The idea of proposing this legalization unilaterally without the United States in inconceivable. Therefore, we would propose setting up a committee made up by representatives from both nations who would study marijuana legalization without a priori and submit their recommendation on the basis of the facts of production in Colombia and evidence on marihuana consumption in the United States.” in Tokatlian, Google books] (Note: After millions of deaths; environmental devastation; and more -and more chemical- substances, 36 years later the US finally goes the long way to start leglazing marijuana.). [March 15-16 1979]

[1980] Ernesto Samper Pizano: "Los subrepresentados" en La abstención, Fondo Editorial ANIF, [September 1980] The economist Samper (the proposal actually orginated fom the ACOPI Asociación Colombiana Popular de Industriales) went one step further beyond proposing legalization and proposed legalizing narcotics traffickers, which implied and economic, social and political negotiation with Colombian narcotics traffickers. This time he held that the underground economy was so powerful that simply repressive formulas were not near enough; the scope of the problem exceeds by far the instruments to regulate it. New alternatives are required. We are, after all, in the face of the fact of either recognizing the mafias or being disregarded them and all getting misled. Thus, as we suggested a year ago, marijuana legalization is the only way of legitimizing these revenues so we also consider it pertinent to suggest the need to give these underground capitals institutional escape valves; to grant amnesties fro these vast fortunes; allow for the possibility of investing them in securities and not properties; and providing special incentives for publicly declaring them would be the three basic formulas in order to avoid that, by keeping them clandestine, these capitals and their owners deal a final blow to our institutions and our people and they buy us off, which in the end is one and the same thing. [Tokatlian, Revista Número No. 18 1998

[1980 ref a] GAC: Olga González Interview with Alain Labrousse - Olga González:: What has been the paramilitaries’ historical relationship with drugs? Alain Labrousse:, The situation as refers to the paramilitary is totally different: they have always had ties with drugs. There ere two known phases: First, that of the 1980s when the Medellín Cartel created the Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) after the M-19 kidnapped Blanca Nieves Ochoa. The second, in the Magdalena Medio region when the large cattle ranchers created the militias’, then the narcos came into the area and defended their labs with militias. This was not their only role; they also fought against the Left.Grupo sobre Actualidad Colombiana (GAC) Revista Semana JUne 20,2004

[1981 ref to] Bogotá conference “The Party of the Weak” in which former President Alfonso López Michelsen (1974-1978) held that …it will not be long before things will become clear regarding, for example, the Bank of the Republic’s “ventanilla siniestra” (the black/sinister window) which, as I have said before, the only thing (black) or sinister about it was its name since supposedly, all of the service funds were narcotics monies; when, in fact, they came from travelers, the difference between interest to devaluation rates as of international and domestic market references, they also come from Colombians who have immigrated abroad and sales of goods and services in Colombian cities bordering with our neighboring countries.

When marihuana prices and certain phenomena currently tied to the narcotics traffic become obvious, we will see how it was nonsensical to discard an important source of revenues in hard currency by simply stating that its origins was sinister. .. In the face of this problem, we also need a definition which the United States should also know since, it is not by reducing Colombia’s stance regarding the drug problem to conferences and private meetings, that we are going to come to a solution. Along these same lines, what Ernesto Samper has to say is true, even if we don’t agree with legalization. It is absolutely necessary to take a stand (tener una posición) and not take refuge in moral concepts to speak, with feelings of guilt regarding the underground economy, about clandestine dollars, about emerging citizens, A whole set of expressions that are far from economic pragmatism and fall into moral qualifications which, even if valuable, are norms of individual conduct but which cannot be a scientific analysis or study of any problem whatsoever since, when it comes to researching social laws, one thing is science and another altogether is morality - Alfonso López Michelsen, Liberalismo años ochenta, Bogotá: Litoformas de Colombia, 1981, pp. 10-11. [en Tokatlian]

[1981] Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar: Coca and cocaine as medicines: An historical review, Today its [cocaine's¨] only generally accepted medical use is as a topical anesthetic in certain kinds of minor surgery and other clinical procedures. There are, however, some recent and so far uncertain signs of reviving interest in cocaine and even coca itself for other medical purposes, in research as well as in diagnosis and treatment. />Coca and cocaine as medicines: An historical review. Journal of Ethnopharmacology , Volume 3, Issues 2–3, March–May 1981

[1891 ref to] Maria Alejandra Montes Sarmiento y Maria Del Rosario Perea Garcés: After the kidnapping of Martha Nieves Ochoa (sister of the Medellín Ochoa brothers) by the M-19, in December 1981 a new group comes on the scene. It’s a group founded by the narcotics traffickers to guarantee their own safety and make sure the economic might they are acquiring does not make them victims of kidnappings of the guerrilla and common criminals. This is how the group Muerte a Secuestradores (MAS) is born in Cali upon an accord reached by 223 narcotics traffickers who agreed to give the organization funding and manpower: 446 million pesos and 2,230 men. They vowed themselves to dismantling the M-19 in Medellin. ¿Cómo el narcotráfico ha influido en la política criminal Colombiana? 1978- 1997 Universidad Javeriana “. [2005]

[1981] CIA-FOIA Latin american Narcotics Assessment (en mamacoca) "Under President Turbay, the Colombian government has been responsive to US narcotics policy. But the authorities cannot concentrate wholly on marijuana and cocaine trafficking because of the insurgency problem." 1981

[1982] The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Program was established in 1982 to mount a comprehensive attack against organized drug traffickers. Today, the OCDETF Program is the centerpiece of the United States Attorney General's drug strategy to reduce the availability of drugs by disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organizations and money laundering organizations and related criminal enterprises.

[1982] CIA-FOIA Noforn-Nocontract- Orform: Cocaine Production in Bolivia (en mamacoca) “Any Bolivian government would have difficulty suppressing the narcotics traffic ―even if it wanted to― because of the pervasiveness of the drug industry.” January 26, 1982

[1982] US 4696819 Patent Anorexic material extracted from coca leaves and method of preparing “A naturally occurring anorexic composition of matter that does not alter locomotor function comprising the water soluble constituents of the coca leaf (Erythroxylon coca). Anorexic compositions consisting of the foregoing described product prepared from coca leaves in admixture with a non-toxic, pharmaceutically acceptable carrier. A method of suppressing appetite levels in animals comprising administering a therapeutically effective concentration of the inventive product in a pharmaceutically suitable carrier intravenously, orally, intraperitioneally and intramuscularly. The method of preparing an anorexically active product from coca leaves.” April 30, 1982

[1982] [1982 ref to “The Bad Weed” A Caracol TV series (soap opera) based on Juan Gossain’s novel and a Martha Bossio script. The theme was the narcotics traffic. The series was extremely popular in Colombia but the fact that its characters were narcotics traffickers and marijuana planters was a source of controversy. The ‘Pharmacodependence’ and Toxicology Society launched a campaign against the series and an Inravision (National Radio and Television Institute) tribunal allowed the series to be broadcast provided the narcotics traffickers ― the main characters― did not have a happy ending. One of the reasons why these characters were so popular is because at the time the mafia was not as violent (criminal) as it is now. “La Mala Hierba” Quoted in Controversia No. 156, 1989

Bernard Castelli: -Pablo Escobar comes to the Colombia Congress as alternate to the Chamber of Representatives for the Antioquia Department (whose capital is Medellín). At the time (1989-1994) of “Economic Openness (Apertura Económica) the riches were in the hands of a few families. Drugs created a small social revolution modifying social relations. Many people closed their eyes to this , believing it served the country well, help it to enter the modern age. Narcotics traffickers not only created jobs but they also generously built schools and healthcare centers. Dirty monies were one of the drivers of economic dynamism. So the mafia was tolerated as long as it conformed itself to boosting the economy. But, when they start infiltrating the political establishment, the government declares war on them. Quoting Darío Betancour y Martha Luz Garcia [1994] Économie colombienne: Des richesses arificielles in IRD, April 1999

[1982 ref to] Catherine Austin Fitts: Dillon, Read & Co. Inc Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the CIA dated February 11, 1982 in effect until August 1995. [..] Through the MOU, the DOJ relieved the CIA of any legal obligation to report information of drug trafficking and drug law violations with respect to CIA agents, assets, non-staff employees and contractors. Presumably, this included the corporate contractors who, by executive order, were now allowed to handle sensitive intelligence and national security outsourcing. With the DOJ-CIA Memorandum of Understanding, in effect ,a crack cocaine epidemic ravaged the poorer communities of America and disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of poor people into prison who, now classified as felons, were safely off of the voting roles. Meantime, the U.S. financial system gorged on what had grown to an estimated $500 billion-$1trillion a year of money laundering by the end of the 1990s. Not surprisingly, the rich got richer as corporate power and the concentration of investment capital skyrocketed on the rich margins of state sanctioned criminal enterprise. 2006

[1983 ref to] Juan Gabriel Tokatlian* Colombia at War: Peace Diplomacies: “In October 1983, Belisario Betancur Cuartas (1982-1986) strove to establish direct dialogue with the commanders of the M-19 in Madrid, and he later tried to personally contact the representatives of this armed movement in Mexico City in December 1984. Eventually, the Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders/Incumbents and Citizens'Interests Defender (Procurador General) Carlos Jiménez and the Colombian Ambassador in London, Bernardo Ramírez, held another unsuccessful meeting with the M-19 in Mexico in March 1985. […] All the same, his presumptive “Cuban Ace” and “European Ace” did not help Betancur to achieve peace nor to keep Colombian affairs from gravitating towards the United States. As political negotiations became diluted and the narcotics traffic's domestic power reasserted itself, Washington's specific weight in peace and drug concerns also increased. When, in 1984 U.S. Ambassador, Lewis Tambs, coined the term “narcoguerrilla” to define a type of transcendental alliance between narcotics traffickers and guerrilla groups, the limits to Betancur's internal and external peace-building strategies became obvious. In fact, the inescapable question was bound to rise: is the government negotiating with an armed group, is it doing so with a political insurgent group or with a criminal and Mafia organization? […] Despite attempts by the government to discriminate between guerrilla and narcotics traffic, this became increasingly difficult as of 1985. Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara's assassination in 1984 moved Betancur to bow to U.S. pressure and to initiate extradition proceedings. Colombia's economic crisis drove the Betancur administration towards the United States inasmuch as Washington was crucial to obtaining the billion dollar Jumbo loan in 1985.. Lastly, the M-19's storming of the Palace of Justice led the president to adopt the “heavy-handed” language so prized by U.S. officials.” 2000

[1983] C.B. Schultz Statutory classification of cocaine as a narcotic: an illogical anachronism.“Although cocaine is pharmacologically not a narcotic, federal and state drug control laws have classified it as one from 1922 through the present. In many states and under federal law, the classification is part of a statutory scheme that imposes substantially more severe penalties for offenses involving cocaine than for offenses involving other nonnarcotic drugs. This Note examines the circumstances surrounding the adoption and maintenance of the legal classification of cocaine as a narcotic. It then reviews two of the many cases that have rejected claims that the classification is unconstitutional. The Note concludes that, despite its constitutionality, the inaccurate classification is not only illogical and unnecessary to a legislative goal of strictly penalizing cocaine offenses, but is counterproductive as well.” A. J Law Med 1983 Summer;9(2):225-45.

[1983] Andrew Weil & Winifred Rosen From Chocolate to Morphine. “In our own society, all nonmedical drugs other than alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine are viewed with suspicion by the majority There are subgroups within our society, however, that hold very different opinions. Many North American Indians who use peyote and tobacco in religious rituals consider alcohol a curse. The most fervent members of the counterculture that arose in the 1960s regard marijuana and psychedelics as beneficial while rejecting not only alcohol, tobacco, and coffee but most other legal and illegal drugs as well.” Houghton-Mifflin Company,El café “Del café a la morfina”, Integral 1983

[1983] Jean-Marie Pelt "A trial on tobacco without the benefit of an appeal": Tobacco is industrial society and advanced people’s prime drug. The quantities consumed make tobacco the world’s leading drug. Over 4 million tons of tobacco leaf are produced per year. The United States is the largest producer with a million tones a year. Le procès sans appel du tabac", « Drogues et plantes magiques » Fayard, 1983

[1983] Semana “Bazuko the devil’s vice”: ¿What is bazuco? In addict slang it it called bazuko, baserolo, susuki, zuko and it is one of the most toxic drugs to be had. It is essentially the crude and unrefined extract of the coca leaves. Processing it is so rudimentary that it is generally a domestic thing: the coca leaf is macerated to free its sap, it is sprinkled with bicarbonate soda, dissolved in gasoline and then filtered. Sulphuric acid, chloroform ether and kerosene are often used. The result is a coca paste, highly poisonous and dangerous since nobody really knows what’s in it. What’s more, when sold on the street, it is generally adulterated with plantain flour and other flours. Bazuko is considered to be of good quality when it dissolves into grease when heated. It is generally a powder that is smoked, rarely injected nor inhaled like cocaine. Bazuko el vicio del diablo August 15, 1983

[1985] Aerial spraying Kathy Smith Boe: Paraquat Eradication: Legal Means for a Prudent Policy?: “During the 1970s, the United States government, acting on the fact that most of the marijuana consumed in this country during that decade was imported, was primarily interested in reducing the supply of marijuana from foreign nations. Mexico was the main supplier of marijuana to the United States during the 1970s. In order to combat importation from this source, the United States Department of State began providing financial assistance to Mexico in 1972 to control cultivation. This financial assistance was provided pursuant to Section 481 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the obligations of the United States under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Between 1972 and 1975, marijuana plants were destroyed manually by uproot-ing and burning them. Since marijuana plants were often grown on small plots scattered throughout the rough Mexican terrain, this manual destruction was both slow and costly. Consequently, the Mexican government's efforts to halt the growth of marijuana were largely ineffective during the early 1970s.[…] In August of 1983, the DEA carried out its first paraquat spraying mission. ” B.C. Envtl. Aff. L. Rev.491 (1985), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/ealr/vol12/issue3/4

[1984] Herbicide Expert Committee Recommendations: From a human sanitary and environmental outlook, the chemical method should be the last to be considered. […] The final recommendation regarding the method to destroy marihuana and coca crops should be taken by Colombian scientists and specialists and, in case the participation of foreign scientists and specialists is deemed necessary, they should be there as consultants and not to decide on this crucial Colombian issue.Recomendaciones del Comité de Expertos en Herbicidas [en Lacera 1995] [ver animisme extractos en Expediente No. 2001-0022-02 Claudia Sampedro y otros] /

[1984] Actuel "Cocaine is 100 years old": Medical research has not found this powder to have severe toxic effects. Few long-term repercussions for “reasonable “users (one or two grams per month) . It does not create dependence (the withdrawal syndrome seen in people who go off alcohol,l barbiturates and heroin) nor increased tolerance (the need to do greater quantities) . Psychological tests are at a standstill. In the end, coke’s effects are hard to pinpoint. They vary form one person to another and it is particularly sensitive to placebo traps –give a user a substitute powder and he will hardly notice the difference. That’s what dealers count on! ""La cocaïne a cent ans" Actuel No. 56 1984

[1984] Caffrey RJ.: Counter-attack on cocaine trafficking: the strategy of drug law enforcement “ In the past cocaine was abused by the affluent and the famous members of society while at present it is widely abused by people in all social strata. Both abuse and availability of cocaine are increasing in the United States of America[…]. Coca plant eradication is regarded as the most effective weapon against cocaine trafficking. DEA special agents, in co-operation with their counterparts from concerned countries, are conducting intelligence exchange, international cocaine investigations and training programmes in cocaine source areas.” Bull Narc 984 Apr-Jun;36(2):57-63.

[1984] Tranquilandia: As part of the U.S satellite control that began in November and as Minister Lara Bonilla’s anti-mafia campaign lost some of its impulse and with the government no longer really interested in extraditing despite the pressure exerted by Ambassador Tamb, Operation Yari 84 was launched. The worlds’ largest laboratory complex in Southern Colombia “Tranquilandia” and its annexes “Pascualandia” (4 labs) and “Villacoca” (15 small lab) were discovered . It had 18 landing strips in a 500 hectare terrain. Apart from its entire infrastructure, 18 tons of cocaine (the usual out put for a week’s work worth 120 million dollars) ready for shipment were seized. ". In Proyecto Pablo Escobar soporte del libro "La historia de Colombia en tiempos de Pablo Escobar". [March 1984]

On May 29, 1984 Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders (Procurador General de la Nación) Carlos Jiménez Gómez recieved memo . The Mafia’s Memorandum” called “Unilateral Declaration” is a six-page document sent on May 29, 1984 to Solicitor General Carlos Jiménez Gómez by a group of narcotics traffickers saying they controlled from 70 to 80% of the cocaine trade and offering to conditionally surrender. They also suggest that the government harden the drug laws. Semana: "Memorando de la mafia"

[1984 -ref a] Fernando Cubides: -In reference to the Panama Marriot Hotel memorandum personally handed to former President Alfonso López Michelsen by the top heads of the narcotics traffic in May 1984, one of the stated intentions of this document was to appease, propitiate negotiations and, in fact, one of the persons through whom it was made public, Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders Carlos Jiménez Gómez, started defending the idea of sitting down to talk and negotiate wit the narcos. The idea did not get far since the suspicions it provoked at an international level were soon obvious and the vicissitudes of President Betancur’s ongoing peace process with the FARC guerrilla made it impossible to change the script. And, according to several sources and the evidence available, it is at this time in history that the first paramilitary groups are founded. . Narcotráfico y Guerra en Colombia: Los paramilitares, Profesor Departamento de Sociología-Investigador, Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Relaciones Internacionales-IEPRI, Universidad Nacional de Colombia [13 de agosto 2001]

[Ref to 1984] ] Tokatlian en Arrieta et al.: El momento de la fumigación: From the beginnig of Belisario Betacur’s 4-year mandate, the U.S. Executive reaffirmed its chemical-eradication thesis- Betancur’s reluctance echoed that of Turbay. However, Jusrtice Minister Lara Bonnilla’ assassination possibly contributed to his change of heart and he gave in. Tokatlian mentions the fact that , in December 1985, the government used Garlón-4 unitl Dow Chemical Corporation refused to continue supplying the Colombian government for fear of being sued.. en Narcotráfico en Colombia, dimensiones políticas, económicas, jurídicas, e internacionales, (la llegada del Glifosato) Universidad de los Andes, Editorial Ártico, 1989

[1984] Oficio No. C3885 del Inderena a la Dirección de la Policía Nacional P Colombia’s INDERENA (Institute for Renewable Natural Resources and Environment / Natural Instituto Nacional de los Recursos Naturales Renovables y del Ambiente sent notice to the National Police protesting against the fact that, from now on, aerial spraying would be don with Glyphosate. “Let this the occasion to point out that the Inderena as part of the National Narcotics Council (Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes CNE) opposed the use of the defoliant called Paraquat to destroy illegal plantations in the Sierra Nevada and other regions because it considered and considers that there are other less harmful means for this purpose. This was not the case with glyphosate since the Institute was not invited to the National Narcotics Council sessions during which the alternative use of the herbicide was discussed, nor has it been consulted or notified of the decision by Cabinet or the National Government to apply it by aerial means over the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Natural Park or over its buffer and influence zone.” [..] The Inderena goes on to request prior ecological and environmental impact studies as stipulated by the Renewable Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Code . August 8, 1984

[1984] Notice to all Military Commands: -As of the Peace Accords signed by the Betancur government with the FARC in 1984, Major general Miguel Vega Uribe, General Military Forces Commander, issued a newsletter to all the military commanding officers in which the Army’s stance on the ongoing peace process was made fairly clear. On April 30 1984 the National Government declared a nationwide State of Emergency,. In the following days, it passed several ordinances and exceptional measures; such as, among other, giving the Military Criminal Justice system jurisdiction over narcotics-related crimes. ”. Circular a Mandos Militares en Arturo Alape “Los Gobiernos y el orden publico La Paz La Violencia Testigos de excepción”, Planeta, 1985

[1985 ref to] Colombia Reports 1985 Palace of Justice siege “The Palace of Justice siege refers to the 1985 occupation of Colombia’s Supreme Court building by M-19 guerrillas, and the subsequent violent military retake that cost the lives of at least a 100 people, including half the court.[…] On November 6, 1985, at least 30 guerrillas from the rebel group Movement M-19 stormed the Palace of justice and took 300 hostages with the attention putting then-President Belasario Betancur and his Defense Minister on trial for violating a peace agreement. , December 15, 2016

[1985 ref a] Jorge Orlando Melo The Justice Palace Siege, in November 1985, destroyed the hopes of a soon-to-come negotiated peace solution to the guerrilla conflict and reinforced the government’s view that the ties between the narcotics traffic and the guerrilla groups were rapidly growing.. Simultaneously, in many parts of the country, the narcotics traffickers were waging a violent war against groups akin to the guerrilla groups, particularly against the Union Patriotica and Communist Party. A good number of their members were assassinated by paramilitary groups backed and armed by the drug lords seeking to put an end to the extortions and kidnappings suffered by their own members in those rural areas where they were acquiring enormous properties. “La lucha contra el narcotráfico: éxitos y limitaciones”: , 1994

[1986-1993] Referencia: Expediente No. 7719. The first known law suit in Colombia for damages caused by aerial spraying. Actor: Jaime González Rubio The suit as settled in 1993 Despite visits by the authorities , the State Council considered there was no proof.

[1986 ref to] These are testimonies from the first region in Colombia to suffer drug militarization through backpack spraying and then aerial spraying– This region, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Declared a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1986, was sprayed until 2006 first for marijuana and then for coca, as it pushed its way through agrochemical spraying. Testimonios de daños por efecto de las fumigaciones en la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta en 1986 [en Lacera, 1995

[1986 ref to ] An August, 1996, series in the San Jose Mercury News by reporter Gary Webb linked the origins of crack cocaine in California to the contras, a guerrilla force backed by the Reagan administration that attacked Nicaragua's Sandinista government during the 1980s. Webb's series, "The Dark Alliance," has been the subject of intense media debate, and has focused attention on a foreign policy drug scandal that leaves many questions unanswered. / The Contras, Cocaine, and Covert Operations /The Dark Alliance"). For denial see

[1986] Semana: The Bazuco houses -Despite its crude appearance and cheap price (a cigarette costs around 500 pesos), bazuko is a drug smoked by the wealthy. This is only natural since the anxiety felt by the person who smokes it forces him to smoke another one immediately, thus smoking up to 5 or 6 “bananas” in under 10 mminutes. It is not rare for one of the members of these clubs to spend up to 50-70 thousand pesos in just a few hours without counting the money spent on alcohols and membership fees. These private clubs are a relatively recent occurrence. Las casa del bazuco March 24, 1986 ///[2015] Comparatively, in 2015 Jorge Orozco’s article “Basuco A Million-Dollar Business Whose Revenues Come from the Poor – points to the fact that the Galería Santa Elena is just one the main basuco sales and consumption sites in the city. …A basuco cigarette costs COP$1,000. In 10 minutes, at just one of the sales site, the sales amount to $48,000. In an hour, COP$288,000 are sold. Lemar says he sells day and night. Thus, in one day, just one basuco stand can make up to over 6 million pesos. Two stands sell COP$12,000,000. In the gallery you can see women, children old and young men, almost naked, filthy, extremely filthy, consuming. … According to the statistics, in Cali 3,500 people live in extreme poverty, on the streets. In Colombia, according to a UN report, there are at least 29,000 basuco: consumers Jorge Orozco: Basuco, un negocio millonario sostenido por los indigentes en la galería de Santa Elena ,, El País April 12, 2015

[1986] Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) Drug Use in Latin America and the Caribbean Uso de drogas en América Latina y al Caribe -According to one of the studies, hospitalizations due to basuco use in Medellin tripled between 1981 and 1983 This might also be the case in Cali and Bogota., Vo 7 No. 2 1986

[1986] Law 30 of 1986 National Narcotics Statute – Article 2 defines: Dose for personal use is the amount of narcotics person carries or posses for his own use. Personal dose of marijuana amount is not over 20 grams; marijuana hashish that does not exceed 5 grams; cocaine or any cocaine-based substance that does not exceed 1 gram and methaqualone that does not exceed 2 grams – Further on, this same law holds in its article 51 that “ the person carrying or possessing for his own personal use, or consuming cocaine, marihuana or any other drug that produces dependence, in quantities considered personal doses, will in accordance be punishable by: a- 30.-day arrest and 2 week's minimum pay if it his first time ….c- if caught 12 months later , a month to a year0s prison sentence ---c- If the user or consumer, after medical exam, is found to be in a state of addiction even if caught for the first time , he shall be interned in a public or private psychiatric unit or similar for the time needed for his recovery. In this case neither fine nor arrest is applicable. He can be turned over to the family’s charge --- with a bond payment ……and the addict’s treatment is obligatory. Article 87 states that, those people who have not transgressed this statute but are affected by the consumption of drugs that produce dependence, will be sent to the establishments mentioned …..

Articles 51 and 87 of Law 30 of 1986 were declared unconstitutional by Ruling C-221 of the Plenary Session of the Constitutional Court (Sala Plena de la Corte Constitutional) of May 5, 1994, Magistrado Carlos Gaviria Díaz, thus confirming the right and amounts for personal use of the drugs taken into consideration at the time. Dissenting Opinion Sentencia No. C-221/94

As concerns crops, Law30 of 1986 defines Plantation as the number of over 20 plants from which drugs which can cause dependence can be extracted (you do ‘theoretically’ need a permit) January 31, 1986.

--- In 2012, the Executive proposed a New National Drug Statute for discussion.- It is still pending and has been widely discussed and counter proposals have been made by social organizations. The new bill still proposes aerial spraying (which was banned by the Santos government in 2015) and includes other substances in the personal dose category. Drug use in Colombia has mainly been a judicial-ruling issue more than advanced on through legislative initiatives. The Colombian Congress more often than not has had to fight back attempts at criminalizing drug use as was the case under the Alvaro Uribe regime when the Executive proposed 5 bills to incorporate Prohibition directly into the 1991 Constitution by amending it.The judicial branch has also been the one to include the newer substances into legal considerations.

A more recent Supreme Court judicial ruling (2014 -Radicación 33409 ) has stated that the quantity of a person’s personal dose depends on his needs, namely if he is an addict he cannot be incarcerated if carrying more than the quantities stipulated by the law ; in which case the person has to prove his compulsive use.

In 2016 Samuel Hoyos, Centro Democrático (Uirbe’s party) proposed a 2016 Bill which is an attempt at penalizing drug use through a bill which seems to propose consumption sites (salas de consumo) but is in fact an effort to control the possession and use of the minimum dose allowed by Colombian law.

[1986] Convenio "Rodrigo Lara Bonilla" Rodrigo Lara Bonilla Agreement between the Member Countries of the Cartagena Agreement on Co-operation for Prevention of Abuse of, and Suppression of Illicit Traffic in, Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, --Rememberring that the illicit drug trade constitutes a crime against humanity.. April 30, 1986

[1987 ref to] The paramilitary or self-defense groups built ties with economic and political sectors in certain regions of the country and became particularly powerful towards the end of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s. During this period, the paramilitary groups also established close ties with the narcotics traffic. Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos : Contexto: origen y características del conflicto armado interno en Colombia

[1987 ref a] ELN- Voces /Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional Voices -A history to remember The Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar (CGSB) is born on the 27th of September 1987 at the I Conferencia Bolivariana" where Basic-level political, military and organizational agreements were reached regarding unified actions. Ths marks the coming together of all of the country’s guerrillas as in response to the politics of extermination being implemented by the Virgilio Barco Government and the military forces. It is also a result of the failure of the so called “peace process” that took place during the 4-year Belisario Betancur mandate and his betrayal of the guerrillas that signed; it ensues from the country’s convulsed state; form the closing of political spaces which demand wider participation; and the systematic assassination all the leaders, as can be seen when, in October 1987, Jaime Pardo Leal President of the Patriotic Union Unión Patriótica, UP was assassinated in cold blood by the government’s armed forces. Una historia para recordar: Resumen informativo de noticias II época – Número 93 semana del 9 al 16 de noviembre de 1998

[1987] Mario Arango Jaramillo y Jorge Child The number of Colombian capitalists living the greater part of the year in the United States keeps in growing. IN contrast, it is the owners of the narcodollars who just recently made known their interest in repatriating their earnings. The sum that would return to the country is said to be 2 billion US dollars, Narcotráfico: Imperio de la Cocaína, Edivisión , 1987

[1987] Revista Semana Who killed Cornel Ramirez The man who personally led the operation which led to the Discovery of the largest cocaine processing center in the World Tranquilandia where 23,733 kilos could be processed in 6 months. His testimony served to accuse Pablo Escobar of the being the mastermind behind Justice Minister Lara Bonilla’s assassination. : ¿Quien mato al Coronel Ramírez? [13 de abril 1987]

[1988] The first public election for mayors in Colombia was held on March 13, 1988. Prior to this, the mayors were appointed by the governor of the department who was, in turn, appointed by the President of the Republic. Initially they were elected for 3-year terms and, as of 2002, their term was extended to 4 years. Eleccion popular de alcaldes:

[1988] Luis Alberto Restrepo The lack of political alternatives ensues in a blind whirlwind of confronting violences. If to this you add the violence exercised by the mafias one against the other and against the ‘poliitcal class’, we can say that the country is in the eye of the tornado. The narcotics traffic’s political retaliation against the political class is an additional ingredient to this crisis and, up to a certain point, is not an internal part of it since it does not really represent a threat to the “establishment” but it does highlight the deep contradictions inherent to the governing class. "La guerra como sustitución de la política IEPRI enero-abril de 1988

[1989] Brian PF and Coward GA. A review of the history, actions, and legitimate uses of cocaine. “The history of cocaine is charted with specific reference to its usefulness as a medicine and local anesthetic. It is common knowledge that coca leaves were used as a panacea and local anesthetic throughout the history of the Incan Empire of Peru. In Europe, however, its medical usefulness was not fully recognized until Carl Koller used it to anesthetize the cornea of the eye. Over the next 20 years, cocaine became a popular medicine and tonic in Europe and America, where it was credited with curing a wide variety of diseases and illnesses. However, reports soon started to appear claiming that cocaine was a drug with a high social abuse potential and in America it seemed to underpin growing crime figures. As a result, cocaine was misclassified as a narcotic and its use was restricted to specific surgical procedures and medicinal preparations. Today, cocaine and its derivatives are still popular local anesthetics in operations of the ear, nose and throat and it is also used in a preparation given to alleviate the pain (physical and mental) of terminal diseases. Although cocaine has a high public profile as a drug of addictive potential, this drug has also had a long and distinguished history as a medicine and local anesthetic. The legitimate uses of cocaine exacerbate the problems of controlling this substance of abuse and should provide a stimulus for generating local anesthetics that lack addictive potential..” 1989

[1989] UNODC: An evaluation of the results of a drug sample analysis. “Anhydroecgonine methylester, emanating from the source of the cocaine, and ecgonine benzoylester, a product of cocaine hydrolysis, were found in the majority of the samples containing cocaine. Such by-products are often found in small amounts even in unadulterated, undiluted cocaine. […] Adulterants were detected in 59.6 per cent of the samples containing cocaine. Lidocaine was found in a far greater percentage of those samples (52 per cent) than caffeine, procaine or other adulterants, which were detected only occasionally. Of the adulterated samples, 84 per cent contained a single adulterant.[…] Of the diluents, sugars were detected in 45 per cent of the samples; those used most often were mannitol and glucose.”, 1989

1989] Tom Clancy: "Clear and Present Danger” Novel on how the United States sent its soldiers to Colombia and unleashed a merciless war between the drug cartels. The expression “Clear and present danger" was first used in a U.S. Supreme Court Ruling (Schenck v. United States) during the I World War and set precedent for the pre-eminence of National Security over the Frist Ammendemnt on freedom of speech. It stands for the United States’s National Securtiy right ovrr all others as opposed to "inminente lawless actions” which are contrary to the national security of other countries. The movie (1994)

[1989] Luis Suárez-Salazar: Growing drug use is primarily a North American problem and generates all sorts of contradictions between the USA and Latin America, who is supposed to be responsible for fighting the issue. Moral judgments should be replaced by an international political drug agreement which takes into consideration both the legitimate interests of “consuming” countries and those of the countries which are potentially “suppliers” . Conflictos sociales y políticos generados por la droga, Nuso, julio-agosto de 1989

[1989 ref to]: El Espectador 1989 A Year to remember – The La Rochela Massacre on the 18th of January ushered in what was to be one of the bloodiest years in Colombian history. 1989: año para tener en la memoria, 18 de enero 2014

[1989] Alma Guillermopietr: Some of the few people who have benefited from the confrontation between the Colombian government and the cocaine traffickers are glass makers. (In reference to the constant bombs that shattered everything along the way). : En Las guerras en Colombia Aguilar 2008 Bogotá 1989, The New Yorker [16 de octubre 1989]

[1989] UNODC Coca-leaf production in the countries of the Andean subregion “The magnitude of the problem of coca-leaf production, together with the recent increase in the areas under cultivation and in the amounts produced, is a clear sign that this is an economic phenomenon of a proportion that far exceeds the current capacity of most of the countries in the Andean subregion to control it, particularly because no sector of the formal economy of those countries has grown as quickly and dynamically as coca production. Not only have a number of individuals become multimillionaires practically overnight, but whole new social classes have been formed that are connected with the illicit economy of drug trafficking.” January 1, 1989

[1989] NewLook: Cocaine has profoundly changed this country’s structure. It has multiplied jobs, throwm the financial system off balance (the banks call their windows “sinister windows” which allow currencies to be exchanged without any control over the narcodollars); the commercial circuits are sidetracked towards supplying luxury-goods at the expense of staple products. Cocaïne - De la Colombie a crack city Mensuel No. 73 août 1989.

[1989] United States "Summary of the Meeting with Study Commission from the Office of the National Drug Control Policy", (en mamacoca (FOIA) 31 de marzo 1989

[1989] Mauricio Romero: The land-concentration phenomenon in the Cordoba Department and peasant displacement and how narcocapital has reinforced violence, which was low since the 1970 peasant marches.: Now, as of the collective assassination of peasants, the conflict has been thrown back to long-forgotten times. This narcocapital has accelerated a land-concentration dynamics which had begun to slow down. It has added its own peculiarities to it, without changing the tendency towards gradual peasant displacement. Collective peasant assassinations are a somewhat new social event in the midst of this antisubversive crusade led by the narcocapital. What legitimated the narcotics traffickers’ paramilitary stance was the armed authorities attitude who, in the framework of their anti-subversive struggle, ended up wrapped up in their own rhetoric, and in that of the narcos. In a nutshell, the narcotics traffic’s impact has not only been economic but social and political as well. Increases in cattle productivity and production (cattle-farming subsumed to demand from Antioquia) has gone hand-in-hand with an elite relay or the entry of new elements to that department’s social-leadership ranks and, as refers to politics, it has strengthened the large land-holding (latifundistsa) society’s authoritarian relations. Córdoba: Latifundio y narcotráfico CINEP Análisis Documentos Ocasionales No. 56, noviembre 1989

[1989] Rensselaer W. Lee III: The White Labyrinth-Cocaine and Political Power “ (review) Powerful forces work against efforts to control the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States from the Third World. The potential for conflict and recrimination is built into the situation. The main producer countries are poor and predominantly agricultural. Cocaine traffic in the Western Hemisphere is a particularly serious example of how this conflict of interests plays out.” Transaction Publishers, 1989

[1989 ref to] Fernando B. Salazar Ortuño: Conflict and Negotiation in Coca-Crop Eradication Policies -The United States’ Bennet Plan considers that the international drug trade is a threat to its national security and points to coca-leaf production as the root of the problem that generates drug production and the narcotics trafficking network. Conflicto y negociación en políticas de erradicación de cultivos de coca, 2004 .

[1989] Los Angeles TimesBennett's Drug Plan : When complex social pathology is mistaken for a police problem, the result is the sort of plan that William J. Bennett, the Bush Administration's new drug czar, put forward last week as the Administration's response to Washington, D.C.'s, catastrophic crack cocaine problem.” April 17, 1989

[1989] Ernesto Samper (1994-1998) A Global Strategy to Manage the Economic Costs of the War Against the Narcotics Traffic The Bennet Plan does not propose corresponding equivalent domestic actions in the United States in comparison to the enormous efforts that are being demanded of Colombia in terms of lives and financial resources to repress this phenomenon…. The drug business represents approximately 100 billion dollars for the United States while Colombia receives 2.5 billion dollar of these monies. Our means to control narcofinances are extremely limited. Statement by Liberal candidate to the Presidency of Colombia to foreign press correspondents in Colombia, Bogotá, September 1989 "Una estrategia global para manejar los costos económicos de la guerra contra el narcotráfico"

[1989] Jorge Orlando Melo Document submitted by the Instituto de Estudios Politicos y Relaciones Intenracional de la Universidad Nacional (IEPRI) to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders and Defendor of Public Interests (Procuraduría) .-Production and consumption: Introduce further clarity regarding Colombia’s position towards the United Stares as concerns the need to prioritize reducing drug use. …: Informe a la Procuraduría General de la Nación -El problema del narcotráfico, April 1989

[1989] At the time of presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galan´s assassination, the Administrative Security Department (DAS) director was Maza Márquez.. This book contains the report submitted by the DAS on December 1989. "Los Comandos de la Guerra" (compilación) Oveja Negra, 1991- El magnicidio de Galán (18 de agosto 1989) / In 2010, the Prosecuter General of Public Office Holders/Incumbents and Defendor of Public Interests(Procuraduría General de la Nación) asked the National Prosecutor General (Fiscalía General de la Nación) to open investigation against Maza Marquez for his co-perpetratorship of Galan’s assassination.Semana:Procuraduría pide acusar a Maza Márquez por asesinato de Galán, 14 de septiembre 2010

Speech to the Nation in the midst of brutal bomb explosions and assassinations of innocent bystanders, judges, journalists, 3 presidential candidates…. Presidente Virgilio Barco: -As you have see on your TV screens, the young senator and presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán was despicably assassinated by hit men at the service of the narcotics traffickers’ cartels, who have declared war on our nation.. His cruel death has put all Colombia in mourning and today he is one of the many martyrs who has given his life for the struggle against drugs. …..We have had to carry the heaviest weight of this violence, which does not stop at our borders. The narcotics traffickers attack our police and army to protect a criminal force which is being fueled by the habit of millions of cocaine users, some of them might be listening to me at this very moment. – Those that depend on cocaine have allowed the emergence of the most violent criminal organization the world has ever known. What is, in principle, a matter of a personal habit, has had explosive consequences for society. It has taken us all to war we didn’t ask for. Colombia’s survival is at stake… Naturally, what is more important than t our supply -reduction effort is that you reduce your demand. We cannot destroy the narcotics traffic completely as long as the rpoficts are so extraordinary. As long as there are hundreds of thousands of people who consume illegal drugs, somewhere, in any country, the drug cartels ‘terrorism will continue.… [en Duzán MJ, 1992]

[1989] Noam Chomsky The Invasion of Pananma “Panama has been traditionally controlled by its tiny European elite, less than 10% of the population. That changed in 1968, when Omar Torrijos, a populist general, led a coup that allowed the black and mestizo [mixed-race] poor to obtain at least a share of the power under his military dictatorship. In 1981, Torrijos was killed in a plane crash. By 1983, the effective ruler was Manuel Noriega, a criminal who had been a cohort of Torrijos and US intelligence. […] The US government knew that Noriega was involved in drug trafficking since at least 1972, when the Nixon administration considered assassinating him. But he stayed on the CIA payroll. In 1983, a US Senate committee concluded that Panama was a major center for the laundering of drug funds and drug trafficking. Article published in 1993 on events that took place in December 1989. (7,000 innocent bystanders are said to have been killed by this invasion.)

[1989] Chet M. Mitchell: Organized crime and the war on narcotics: crisis and reform - As of 1990 North American legislators have not been fighting against drugs in general but basically against drugs produced abroad and which are not a part of everyday culture. The challenge was to build a safe world for a society that operates along the lines of a tobacco-alcohol-medications model and on optimizing the export of “good” drugs without taking into consideration the premature death these “good” drugs might cause. The tranquilizer shipments sent to the Third World are getting increasingly larger without anything hindering this. Meanwhile, drugs going in the other direction (with the exception of coffee and tea) are declared terrorist acts. Criminalizing the competition is a strategy currently used in order to win over certain privileges for oneself. Le crime organisé et la guerre aux stupéfiants : crise et réforme, Érudit, Criminologie Vol. 22 No. 1, 1989

[1990] Víctor Gaviria - Rodrigo D: No Future (1990) : "Rodrigo D: No futuro" explores the bleak and precarious lives of working class street kids in Medellín. So dangerous is this world that three of its nonprofessional actors have been killed violently since production wrapped in 1988. Rodrigo has headaches and thinks about his mother, who died sometime previous to the film's story. He is also looking for a drum kit so he can start a punk band with his friends, who sell cocaine to school kids, and steal cars to survive.a : Rodrigo D. No futuro

[1990 ref to] 8 years later in refrence to _The July 24, 1990, Memorandum of Understanding Between the Government of the United States of America And the Government of the Republic of Colombia Concerning the Transfer of Forfeited Asset -“This Memorandum is designed to provide specific guidelines for the transfer -- pursuant to the July 24, 1990, Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Colombia ("1990 MOU") -- of forfeited assets or proceeds derived from illicit narcotics trafficking or any other crime related to this activity.[…] Guidelines for the Use of Shared Assets: In order to promote the most effective use of transferred assets, the Parties shall establish a Bilateral Committee comprised of high level officials representing the Colombian Ministerio de Justicia y del Derecho, Ministerio de Hacienda y Credito Publico, Fiscalia General de la Nación, Policia Nacional (DIJIN), Dirección de Impuestos y Aduanas Nacionales (DIAN), Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (INPEC), Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad (DAS), Dirección Nacional de Estupefacientes, and the United States Departments of Justice and Treasury; to determine what anti-narcotic trafficking projects and initiatives should be funded with assets to be transferred to Colombia as the result of the forfeiture by the United States of America of property derived from the illicit traffic of narcotics or any other crime related to that activity.” Octobre 28, 1998

[1991] Steve. Y. Otera: International Extradition and the Medellin Cocaine Cartel: Surgical Removal of Colombian Cocaine Traffickers for Trial in the United States “Medellin, a city of two million people located in northwest Colombia, serves as the center of the international cocaine industry.17 The Medellin cartel continues to amass immense fortunes by processing and selling cocaine as a mass-market drug. In fact, Forbes magazine recently ranked several of the billionaire members of the Medellin cartel among the richest people in the world.. The Medellin Cartel's Impact in Colombia A large part of the traffickers' power and influence in Colombia stems from the cartel's ability to threaten and intimidate Colombian law enforcement authorities and citizens with violence. Since 1980,drug assassins have gunned down 178 judges, including eleven of the twenty-four members of the Colombian Supreme Court in 1986.. The narcotraficantes have also assassinated two Colombian Justice Ministers and a Colombian Prosecutor General (Fiscal General de la Nación). In the first six months of 1989, the city of Medellin recorded 2,338 murders, reflect-ing the pervasive violence confronting Colombia. Seventy percent of the murder victims were between fourteen and nineteen years of age. In comparison, Washington, D.C. recorded a relatively paltry 303 murders in the same six-month span. […] The violence continued on August 18, 1989, when gunmen killed Senator Luis Carlos Galan, the leading presidential candidate in Colombia's May 1990 presidential election, and an outspoken opponent of the drug cartels. Responding to the assassination, President Virgilio Barco Vargas resurrected the treaty through his state-of-siege powers, in an emergency decree on August 19, 1989. With this act, Barco vowed to drive the drug traffickers from his country.”, Loyola Marymount University and Loyola Law School Digital Commons 1991

[1990] Press release President Virgilio Barco: In December 1989 there was a wave of kidnappings and atrocious terrorist acts carried out by the so-called Extraditables. This situation led some of the country’s leading figures to intervene. As a result of this intermediation, a meeting was held but there has not been any official nor non-official contact between the government and representatives of the narcotics traffickers. Nor has any agreement, treaty or pact been signed between thw government and narcotics traffickers. The combat against organized crime goes on and these are some of the results: from March 1989 to March 1990 – 30 captured 15 of which have been extradited. Virgilio Barco (1986-1990) “Respecto a diversas versiones de medios de comunicación, que indican posibles tratos, a través de intermediarios, entre el Gobierno Nacional y los narcotraficantes. March 29, 1990

[1990] Francis Caballero et Claude Olivenstein Angoisse Il faut légaliser la drogue If we manage to suppress production, we would instantly see the emergence of substitutes, announce the experts. Synthetic heroin and a cocaine that is 100% chemical and would be made in Manhattan or directly in a cave in the Champ de Mars. en Rolling Stone Magazine [abril 1990]

[1990] New York Times Patents; 2 Treatments For Cocaine Addiction -An artificial cocaine “Patrick J. Frawley 3d, chief of staff at the Schick Shadel Hospital in Santa Barbara, Calif., obtained a patent this week for an artificial cocaine used in ''aversion therapy'' programs for drug addicts. […] Aversion therapy, long used in treating alcoholics, consists of allowing people to use substances while giving them medications that make them violently ill if they do. The goal is to disrupt the deeply rooted associations between, for example, taking a drink and the ensuing high.”July 24, 1990

Robert Jackson: Drug Cartels' Easy Access to Arms Told : Narcotics: Mercenary testifies before Senate panel probing terrorist training. He says weapons are 'readily obtained' from Eastern Europe. Los Angeles Times, February 28, 1991 / "Los Comandos de la Guerra" Confidencias de un mercenario Our main objective was the destruction of the Casa Verde the meeting place for the government and FARC peace negotiators. The destruction was to be filmed so we could leak it to the Colombian press claiming the responsibility of a military unit knowing that investigation in the aftermath would not reveal the unit’s identity. Editorial Oveja Negra, 28 de febrero 1991

[1991] Nora Segura ….the narcotics traffic has had a very negative effect on women’s status as it has reinforced the perception that women are luxury consumer products. .. Prostitution is one of the factors (speces) zones which women’s role in drug distribution. Mujer y droga "“…Revista Foro No14 Ediciones Foro Por Colombia, abril 1991

[1991] Ciro Krauthausen y Luis Fernando Sarmiento Neither the individuals nor the enterprises that act in the illegal market are completely irrational. On the contrary, they must continuously rationalize their acts. The cocaine market is a rational market that seeks to maximize its earnings in a calculated manner much the same as would a legal business. “ Cocaína & Co-Un mercado ilegal por dentro” resumen Nencer Losada, Universidad de Caldas 1991

[1991] U.S. Department of Justice-DEA: "Coca Cultivation and Cocaine Processing: An Overview" "The larvae of the moth Eloria Noyesi presents the most serious threat to the coca plant. This moth lives through out the coca-growing region of South America and seems to feed almost exclusively on E. coca. It has also been recorded feeding on E. novogranatense in Colombia and northern Peru. The larva will develop in about a month and will eat up to 50 leaves in its lifetime. The larva will also eat the shoots of the bush that grow out after harvest. If Eloria attacks a plant repeatedly, even a strong plant willdie. The moth is usually only abundant from Decem- ber to April. Coca growers are using insecticides to eradicate Eloria. [1991]

[1991] Donald T. Fox, Gustavo Gallón-Giraldo, and Anne Stetson : Lessons of the Colombian Constitutional Reform of 1991-Toward the Securing of Peace and Reconciliation? “In December 1989, the National Com-mission proposed using the elections of March 11, 1990, to hold a referendum as to whether a constitutional assembly should be held. Notably, the newspaper El Espectador backed the initiative. A student-led movement, organized after the murder of Liberal leader and presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán in August 1989, proposed a referendum text….[…] Successive governments made limited efforts to end guerilla violence peaceably. Until the M-19 abandoned armed struggle to create a political party that participated in the 1991 constitutional assembly, however, there was no real effort to change the structures of power through the political process.“, 2006

[1991 ref to] Julieta Lemaitre : The Peace at Hand: War and Peace in Colombia’s 1991 Constituent Assembly :- “At the beginning of 1991 the general opinion regarding political peace was quite different from what it would be twenty years later. The M-19 had a leading role in the Constituent Assembly, in spite of Carlos Pizarro’s murder. The number of votes they received was lightly greater than that ofthe governing Liberal Party and much greater than those of the other parties, including the divided Conservative Party. Moreover, the peace process with the Ejército Popular de Liberación,(People’s Liberation Army, henceforth EPL) historically one of the largest guerrilla groups, was movingforward successfully. Soon there would be peace talks with the FARC and the ELN, grouped together under the Coordinadora Guerrillera Simón Bolívar (henceforth the Coordinadora), as well as with two small regional guerrilla groups, the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT) and the Movimiento Quintín Lame. For a while it was possible to believe in the promise made in government publicity, “The Assembly is the Way,” and believe that meant the way to political peace.”, 2012

[1991 ref a] Héctor Mondragón “Rural Economy and War”- Rural-advancement loans have been gradually dismantled. By 1997, they covered only 7% of the country’s farmers. The coup de grâce was the when the Agrarian Bank (Caja Agraria) was liquidated. Corruption put an end to the Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Adecuación de Tierras (Himat) whose role was to secure adequate land use. The Colombian Institute for Rural Reform (INCORA) was blocked by politicians in all the regions in contradiction with the growing need to carry out an agrarian reform particularly with the increasing number of displaced populations. This explains the expansion of illicit crops which are now present in one fourth of the country’s municipalities and which excuse further displacements through the aerial spraying. This measure, far from containing these crops, what it does is contribute to their proliferation by dispersing them all over the country contributing to the destruction of forests and juggle areas. Two hundred thousand peasant families, without food or land, have no other option than to replant coca and poppy to compensate for the losses caused by aerial spraying. According to Mondragón the 1991 Constitution agravvated the peasant's already critical situation. La economía rural y la guerra,]Mesas Ciudadanas para una Agenda de Paz -Taller agrario y cultivos «ilícitos” - 5 de abril de 2002

[1991] Colombia Hoy Informa : In September Bush announced the Andean Strategy which combines increased military and policing aid with foreign and domestic military consultants, consultancy for justice reform ―the public order jurisdiction was suggested by the United States― and financial aid for intelligence tasks. In April 1990, Department of State representative Janet G. Mullis wrote that it was inevitable that antinarcotics activities also require simultaneously carrying out counterinsurgency activities in order for the government to regain control over certain regions. ”. Guerrilla y narcotráfico: Piezas de una guerra que ya se armó Colombia Hoy Año XII No. 94 [septiembre 1991]

[1991 ref to] A/RES/46/104 - 74th plenary meeting of 16 December 1991 “…resolution 45/179 of 21 December 1990, by which it requested the Secretary-General to create a single drug control programme to be called the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, based at Vienna, and to integrate fully therein the structures and the functions of the Division of Narcotic Drugs of the Secretariat, the secretariat of the International Narcotics Control Board and the United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control with the objective of enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of the United Nations structure for drug control in keeping with the functions and mandates of the United Nations in this field,… /United Nations Office on Drug and Crime About UNODC (is a global leader in the fight against illicit drugs and international crime. Established in 1997 through a merger between the United Nations Drug Control Programme and the Centre for International Crime Prevention, UNODC operates in all regions of the world through an extensive network of field offices. UNODC relies on voluntary contributions, mainly from Governments, for 90 per cent of its budget.

[1992] Richard Evan Schultes Plants of the Gods -Their Sacred, Healing, and Hallucinogenic Powers , Hoffman & Ratche Eds, 2001 //Youtube _ The Cofan –their entire world was marked by the use of poisons. –Curare one of many of Schultes’s contributions from which a muscle relaxer for surgery was developed.

[1992]Juan Gabriel Tokatian : Glifosato y política: ¿Razones internas o presiones externas? , “At the end of January 1992, the National Narcotics Council (Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes -CNE) informs public opinion its will in favor of backpack and controlled aerial spraying of poppy crops with the glyphosate herbicide …Uniandes, [abril - Junio de 1992]

[1992] Germán Fonseca: Illicit drug production, trade and use analyses often suffer due to the prejudices that taint these diverse factors and they end up revolving around a moral debate or a superficial political ground. Thus, the policies to combat these illicit products are not founded on solid bases which would allow for assessing their costs and economic, political and social advantages. /Économie de la drogue : taille, caractéristiques et impact économiqueTiers-Monde. 1992, tome 33 n°131. pp. 489-516, July-September 1992

[1992] Mylène Sauloy et Yves Le Bonniec: -The official estimates on marijuana destruction in Colombia are counted in thousands of hectares. Curiously, when referring to the United States, what is mentioned is the number of plants that are destroyed, that which makes it quite difficult to make any type of comparison between the two countries. More so when these estimates are neither honest nor irreproachable: take an example, a March 1986 DEA document states that, in 1985 and 1986, the United States destroyed 52 million cannabis plants in 58,900 sites. A couple sentences further on, these achievements are undone when you read that 85% of these plants were basically wild hemp (ditch) weed with less than 0.2% THC. » Les Dupes de la Marimba dans « A qui profite la Cocaïne » Calmann Levy, septiembre 1992

[1993 ref to] María Alejandra Toro Vesga: On Monday may 31, 1993, Carlos Ossa Escobar, member of the Bank of the Republic Board of Directors, was at the El Dorado Airport waiting for a flight which would take him to a meeting with other bankers in Caracas, Venezuela. The police searched his bags and found a small amount of marihuana and he was retained on site, lost his flight and was fined COP$350,000. It was only a bit of weed ―found in the belongings of the former president of the Colombian Agricultural Association , running candidate for Mayor of Bogota, among other― but the marijuana-use issue made the headlines and the debate once again. . El limbo de la penalización de la dosis personal, June 2012

[1993] Martha Luz García y Darío Betancour: There is no doubt that the rise of marijuana and cocaine production and trade is closely tied to the commodity-production crisis faced by the industrialized nations which became particularly severe towards the 1970s. Commodity-production imbalances favored the relocation of large capitals towards new productive ventures, both in industrialized and peripheral countries, channeling the largest part of the capital flows towards those productive ventures which guaranteed the highest earning rates, including illegal market segments. … These activities were largely “stimulated” by national and international laws which, by assigning higher values to banned substances and increasing the risks, increasingly limited the circle of those willing to take part in the different stages of this illegal business. … The illegal-drugs complex productive organization involves a tangled web of local , regional, national and transnational authorities that have generated high levels of violence among both legal and illegal drug producers, among the different sectors of the country and between the underdeveloped and industrialized countries. capt 6 Narcotráfico e historia de la mafia en Colombia /Charts Editorial Cinep/Apep, 22 de julio de 1993

[1993] Ley 67 de 1993 Approves ratification of the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances singed I Vienna on the 20th of December 1988. This Law in Article 14 stipulates the measures adopted (to combat narcotics) should respect fundamental human rights and will take duly into consideration traditional uses, there where there is historical evidence o this effect as well as environmental protection. August 23, 1993

[1993] Peter - Lexington, MA Patent 05506359 - Cocaine analogues and their use as cocaine drug therapies and therapeutic and imaging agents for neurodegenerative disorders "Apart from the uses described above, cocaine analogs may also provide alternatives to cocaine in the pharmacological management of cocaine abuse. The development of cocaine drug therapies which can be readily administered on an out-patient basis under controlled conditions may diminish the illicit drug trade, reduce the probability of AIDS transmission by frequent intravenous dose administration of cocaine, and enable abusers greater access to treatment programs." August 21, 1993 _ Issued April 9, 1996

[1993] US Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA): Alternative Coca-Reduction Strategies in the Andean Region "Insufficient attention has been placed on examinig potential wildland and wildlife use as options----This Report identifies opportunities for and constraints to reducing Andean coca production through: 1)improving U.S. alternative development efforts and 2) July applying biological control technology (biocontrol) to eradicate illegally produced coca. July 1993

[1993] J A Nathanson, E J Hunnicutt, L Kantham, and C Scavone "La cocaína como insecticida de ocurrencia natural"/Cocaine as a naturally occurring insecticide "Although cocaine has a fascinating and complex medicinal history in man, its natural function in plants is unknown. The present studies demonstrate that cocaine exerts insecticidal effects at concentrations which occur naturally in coca leaves. Unlike its known action on dopamine reuptake in mammals, cocaine's pesticidal effects are shown to result from a potentiation of insect octopaminergic neurotransmission. Amine-reuptake blockers of other structural classes also exert pesticidal activity with a rank order of potency distinct from that known to affect vertebrate amine transporters. These findings suggest that cocaine functions in plants as a natural insecticide and that octopamine transporters may be useful sites for targeting pesticides with selectivity toward invertebrates. (full text) October 15, 1993

[1993] Charles-Henri de Choiseul : How does the economic actor who wants to act rationally behave in an illegal-drug context (the banned-drugs market)? For him, Prohibition brings one sure first consequence: it creates an artificial monopoly between the seller and the buyer, the end consumer. In effect, since the product is banned, the buyer has only one seller he can address himself to. Insofar as it is highly dangerous and random to go out in search of another seller, the buyer is subject to a one-off monopoly and he has to pay the highest price. … Prohibition implies a second consequence as concerns the balance between the buyer and the seller: the former has no way of controlling the quality of the goods he is buying since he cannot resort to the competition or to the authorities when the quality is not assured. This is the second advantage that the seller has over the buyer under Prohibition. « La Planète des drogues » La micro-économie de la drogue sous la direction de Alain Labrousse et Alain Wallon , Seuil novembre 1993

[1993 ref to] Fidel Castaño: The PEPES ( short for Persecuted by Pablo Escobar 'Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar’) was a paramilitary group founded and funded by narcotics traffickers allegedly chased by Pablo Escobar who decided in Januray 1993 to build this criminal organization to kill him, "Yo fui el creador de los PEPES" Semana , June 27, 1994.

Cambio 16: "The cockpit" - The advantages of a civilian Defense Minister: What scares the guerrilla the most: the Army or the Prosecutor syndrome? In the past few years we have managed to act in an articulated manner in the face of a common enemy. We understand that the Office of the Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders and Defendor of Public Interests -Procuraduría’s role is to protect citizens’ Human Rights and that the Army is also aware that it has to protect citizens’ rights as well. (Ed note<. We Colombians have forgotten what the purpose of the Procuraduría General de la Nación -National Prosecutor of Public Office Holders/Incumbents and Defendor of Public Interest. This article reminds us of those long-forgotten times when the Incumbents' Prosecutor's job was to defend Colombian citizens' human rights and not to act on the appointed Office of the Prosecutor General of Public Office Holders and Defendor of Public Interest's personal Catholic beliefs and moralists views as was the case of Procurador Alejandro Ordóñez -2009-2016-). La Procuraduría ‘s vowed role is to “represent citizens’ interests in their dealings with the State”, to investigate public office holders'acts of corruption.) La cabina de mando.“Ja Ja Ja ¿De qué nos reímos los colombianos?, 10-27 de diciembre 1993

[1993] Anne Coppel: Drugs and daily neighborhood sociability. -Product quality seems to be determining factor in the behavior of a toxicomane. Thus, in Rotterdam, most heroin users have given up shooting; as long as produce quality is good, the person can have the desired effect by simply smoking the product in what is called “chasing the dragon” . In more repressive contexts, such as the Bronx, the toxicomane is more directly dependent on his dealer and is subjected to cut products which he injects to get a better high. Drogues et sociabilités quotidiennes dans les quartiers -dans « La Planète des drogues » sous la direction de Alain Labrousse et Alain Wallon , Seuil, novembre 1993 /Un accès aux premiers textesd'Anne Coppel (1986-1989) jusqu’aux plus récentes activités.

UNODC Transnational criminal organizations and drug trafficking “The transnational criminal organizations have a home base in one State but operate across national borders and engage in criminal activities in one or more host States. They have many similarities to transnational corporations, and like transnational corporations they vary considerably in structure, strength, size, geographical range and the scope or diversity of their operations. Some are global in reach and organized hierarchically; others are more limited in the scope of their operations and more fluid instructure. Their common feature is that they engage in unregulated forms of capitalist enterprise, involving either illicit products or the illicit smuggling of licit products, or both. The distinction between licit economic activity and illicit cannot be ignored, but the market mechanisms and the resulting accumulation of capital do not depend on such a distinction. In effect, gangster capitalism is simply unregulated capitalism taken to excess.” [1994]

[1994] Rosa Del Olmo: While it is true that government policies in the Andean Region are designed in response to expectations on sanctions or awards from Washington setting the scene for a merit and ‘forced cooperation’ syndrome, it is also true that the issue is gaining increasing priority in regional leaders’ agendas. It is no longar just a matter of National Securt but of Regionla Security as well. . Las Relaciones Internacionales de la Cocaína : " Nueva Sociedad Nro. 130 marzo-abril 1994 , pp. 126-143

[1994] Kai Ambos: We believe a redefinition and profiling of a new drug policy in a dual sense: on the one hand, decriminalization of behaviors which involve production, possession, use and dealing (small quantities) and, on the other hand, more effective measures against organized traffic o the so called organized crime. Acerca de los Intentos de Control de las Drogas en Colombia, Perú y Bolivia, Doctor en Derecho de la Universidad de Munich: " , Cuadernos de Política Criminal , Madrid 1994

WHO UNICRI Cocaine Project: This information package presents the results of an international study on cocaine executed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and funded by the United Nations lnterregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI) “Between 1992 and 1994 the World Health Organization Programme on Substance Abuse (WHO/PSA), in association with the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), undertook the largest global study on cocaine ever. Through the WHO/UNICRI Cocaine Project, information was collected from 22 cities in 19 countries about how cocaine and other coca products are used, who uses them, what effects they have on the users and the community, and how governments have responded to the cocaine problem. […] The information collected represents the largest body of current knowledge on cocaine use at a global level. This briefing kit contains information sheets which summarize the findings of the project. The complete findings of the study wilt be made available in a set of project documents and publications which will be released by WHO/PSA later in 1995.

[…]Health problem; from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use. -• Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users. -• A majority of health consequences may not be directly attributed to cocaine use. Cocaine often contributes to or exacerbates the conditions reported, rather than causing them. (Ed Note: This project was censured ―neither the first nor the last to be brushed under the carpet―. One can’t help imagining the bloodshed, social chaos, environmental devastation and legislative imbalance the world would have been spared had someone or some country not had solely their own self-interest at heart.) Transform Cocaine Project

[1995] Catalytic antibodies against cocaine: This invention provides compounds which are analogs to the hydrolysis transition-state of a cocaine benzoyl ester group. This invention also provides such analogs linked to carrier proteins, and antibodies thereto. This invention further provides pharmaceutical composition for decreasing concentration in a subject using the antibodies produced.” Filed June 1995 Issued November 23, 1999

[1995] Susan Wilson y Marta Zambrano: If we use Hopkins and Wallerstein’s definition of commodity chains as a chain which integrates labor and production processes resulting in a final commodity, we can identify cocaine as a transnational chain integrated by five links: coca growing, coca paste production, coca processing into cocaine, export to consumer markets and its distribution in importing markets. The international financial system which allows illegal-money laundering and its return into the formal economy is what links them all together. S opposed to coca growing and basic coca paste production, cocaine processing requires considerable capital investment. Whereas, for example, the precursors used to process coca leaves into basic coca paste (BCP) are manufactures locally and legally accessible, those used for cocaine are imported form the United States and Germany, they are expensive and hard to get: ether and acetone are controlled substances. : Cocaína, capitalismo e imperio, Revista Análisis Político No. 24 enero-abril 1995, IEPRI

[1995] Alejandro Reyes: Local observers believe a grower needs at least 20 hectares to make a go of it. If the grower has less than 20 hectares, he can barely pay laborers and afford agricultural inputs and he cannot escape the debt burden, which is paid with the harvest to the benefit of the merchants. Those who have plots within that 20-hectare range also make their profits through a debt trap in which they hold the leaf reapers by recovering a good part of their salaries through additional business ventures such as supplying provisions, liquor and entertainment. La erradicación de cultivos: un laberinto, Coyuntura, enero-abril 1995

[1995_ -ref to] Mauricio Romero: In Colombia, the paramilitary or self-defense groups have been associated with the narcotics traffic and the means they typically use in conflict resolution; with the armed forces’ counterinsurgency strategies and the “dirty war” tactics used to combat the revolutionary guerrilla; with parainstitutional modes of controlling social protest used by “Mafiosi” capital factions; or with the expansion of the cattle latifundio and the violent expulsion of the peasants by he large landholders (hacendados). This was one of the assessments advanced in the 1980’s and 1990’s on the phenomenon. Another appraisal held that the paramilitary were born ensuing from the lack of security suffered by owners, investors and rural businessmen duing the second half of the 1990s, view which already had its advocates since 1987. ..This view took form via the security cooperatives CONVIVIR in 1995. These were private surveillance, intelligence and rural safety organizations designed to achieve cooperation between landowners and the public security forces in public-order control operations. Democratización política y contra reforma paramilitar en Colombia,Bulletin Institute Français Études Andines , 2000

[1996] Universidad de los Andes Ciudad y Drogas Investigación: Ectasy: The New Promise? According to consumers, Ecstasy became known in Bogota approximately 3 to 4 years ago and it became more “popular” 2 years ago through press coverage. Extasis ¿La nueva promesa? 1996

[1996] Camilo Echandía Castilla Having analysed the characteristics of Colombian heroin production, processing and trade, we believe that, as opposed to what happens with the cocaine trade where the comparative advantages ―as concerns dominance and efficiency in all of the steps of the business― over the competition are relatively large, in the case of heroin, the comparative advantage is much smaller and could even come to an end once the strictly speculative production-incentives cease to exist.[..] ..Cocaine as an industrial product has greater added value and its high price with respect to volume and weight, means that each shipment generates greater earnings than a marihuana shipment. The cocaine business advantages are not a result of natural factors like I the past but of technological factors. : La amapola en el marco de las economías de ciclo corto, Análisis Político, No 27, Iepri, enero-abril 1996

[1996] DNE: Prevalence of cocaine consumption among the population is estimated at 1.6%, a little over 400,000 people. This use is 5 times higher among men than women, an estimated 332,000 male users whereas the number of women users is estimated at 68,000. The frequency of cocaine consumption differs form that of marijuana. Marijuana is consumed at least three days a week in almost 50% of the cases while cocaine consumption is more sporadic, only 6.3% used cocaine with the same frequency as marijuana consumers. Segundo Estudio Nacional de Consumo de Sustancias Psicoactivas, 1996 estimates published in 1997

[1996] Elvia Velásquez de P Women, Drugs and Risk Groups At the end of 1978 the “Basuca” basic cocaine base began to appear and started to grow rapidly until, in 1984, it became the first source of hospitalizations displacing marijuana to a second place. Nowadays (1996) continues to be the first cause of hospitalizations even though it is the second illegal substance used by the general population following marijuana. La mujer, las drogas y los grupos de riesgo SURGIR, Medellín

[1997] Bernardo Parra Restrepo: La economía de la droga ¿Quiénes se benefician? There are “good” drugs and “bad” drugs .Some of the “good” drugs are alcohols an tobacco, they’re good, among other, because they have contributed to funding US presidential campaigns and have made it possible for a good number of families to make it to the White House thanks to the money made form Prohibition. Profesor, Departamento de Gestión Empresarial, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Administrador de Empresas y Maestría en Administración de Empresas en la Universidad EAFIT de Medellín, Narcotráfico y Sociedad http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co) [1997]

[1997-2000] International Research Project on The Economic And Social Transformations Connected With The International Drug Problem : The social transformations stemming from the development of the drug economy reveal a growth in the sectors of illegal activity and their interpenetration with the official sectors of society. They involve the law and the norms and elementary rules of economic and social organization, and they seem to be causing a far-reaching shift in the pattern of development of our societies. The in-depth study of these transformations therefore has essential future implications for decision-makers and for the definition of appropriate public management tools in the short, medium and long term. Completed Most Project 1997-2000

[1997 ref a] UNODC: Between 1997 to 2000 the paramilitary groups expanded to the Departments of Meta, Guaviare, Antioquia, Chocó, Casanare, La Guajira, Sur de Bolívar, Oriente Antioqueño, Putumayo y Caquetá, Valle del Cauca, Norte de Santander, Santander y Cauca. In 2000, towards Cundinamarca and Nariño and el Alto San Juan en el Chocó (Colombia’s Pacific Ridge). ..Thus, the arrival of these paramilitary groups generated “cleansing operations” in Tumaco from 2000-2002 where a good number of people were selectively assassinates and others displaced., especially young city dwellers. And, as of the National Government’s aerial spraying operations in the Putumayo Department, these crops moved and expanded towards the Nariño Department (1999-2000) , especially to Tumaco, leading to what is known as “illicit crops relocalization”, making the region one the highest in illicit crops and where the Plan Colombia’s Illicit Crops Aerial Spraying Program is centered. En Ministerio del Interior y de Justicia, Comité Interinstitucional de Lucha contra la Trata de Personas Estudio Nacional Exploratorio Descriptivo sobre el Fenómeno de Trata de Personas en Colombia, febrero 2009

[1997] Peter Kopp: L'économie de la drogue,The drug issue crystallizes all of the fears and anguish of this end of the century. The case of the relationship between drugs and delinquency is emblematic. A frequently-quoted rounded figure is that 50% of delinquency cases are tied to drugs. Where does this figure come from? Nobody knows. Yet it is passed on.La Decouverte, 1997

[1998] CINEP Las Convivir un Proyecto Social " Shows (maps) how a project which started in 1994 as a vigilanti initiative has spread throughout the country. The Convivir are is said to be the legal umbrella that gave birth to Colombia’s modern form of paramilitary forces. en "Balance Derechos Humanos 1997 " Cien Días 10 No. 40 [enero-marzo 1998]

[1998] Eduardo Galeano Souls of Discretion: “Over half a century after the war, the secret banker continues to be the engine of national prosperity. Money has the right to wear a mask and fancy dress at a carnival that lasts the whole year round, with the consent of most of the population. A 1984 plebiscite proposed to 'restrict the abuses perpetrated by the secret bankers: 73 percent of Swiss citizens declared themselves against. Thanks to secret banking, the money coming in from drugs and other squalid transactions arrives dirty and departs without so much as a blemish towards the international property and stock markets. However complicated the rinsing process, the laundry always fulfills its task with impeccable efficiency. In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan presided over the United States, Zurich was the center of operations for many-sided transactions under the direction of Colonel Oliver North. According to Jean Ziegler, US weapons would arrive in Iran, an enemy country, and be paid for largely with morphine and heroin; the drugs would then be sold from Zurich and the money deposited there. It, would subsequently be used to fund the mercenaries who bombed co-operatives and schools in Nicaragua.” New Internationalist magazine, October 1998

[1998] New York Times /Anti-Drug Effort Criticized As More Harm Than Help –p –A drug reform institute financed by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros has amassed signatures of hundreds of prominent people around the world on a letter asserting that the global war on drugs is causing more harm than drug abuse itself. The signers include the former United Nations Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, the former American Secretary of State George P. Shultz, the Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, the former CBS television anchorman Walter Cronkite, two former United States Senators, Alan Cranston and Claiborne Pell, and the South African human rights activist Helen Suzman.—Ethan Nadelmann , June 9, 1998

[1999] Gonzalo Sácnchez Illegalization: the means to crime-making. Coca industrialization and its ensuing illegalization by consumer countries generated, on the one hand, an unexpected source of capitalist enrichment and growth while, on the other hand, the twice-fold marginalization of peasants. […] In effect, modern illegalization of the coca product subjected the fragile ancestral cultures and indigenous peoples to the vagaries of trade and violence and, as if this were not enough, it further aggravated the conditions leading to the expropriation of their lands, the material foundation of their culture. Concurrently, they have been disposed of their traditions, rituals and organizational structures, to be replaced by drug trade networks. Illegalization is thus a way of fabricating criminal transgressions-in Hermes Tovar Pinzon, "Colombia, Droga, Economía, Guerra y Paz, Editorial Planeta_Temas de Hoy_Prólogo de Gonzalo Sánchez [octubre 1999]

[1999] Mady Samper: These interviews show the other side of the coin: peasant and indigenous leadership to eradicate poppy crops. , "La Llegada de la Amapola” en Senderos de la Amapola Editorial Planeta [noviembre 1999]

[1999] Mauricio Reina: “Budget expenditures for supply-control measures and demand- control measure reveal a noticeable unbalance. This reflects the United States stance regarding the fact that the greater part of the responsibility for this war should de placed on producer countries. In effect, form 1981 to 1987 while demand-control expenditures were from 18 to 32%, the amount spent on interdiction and domestic and international repression measures was 68 y 82% of the whole amount. Política y Estrategia Antidrogas: ¿Un Esfuerzo Fallido? Colombia Internacional Universidad de los Andes, [octubre - diciembre 1999]

[1999] Charles Bergquist: In the short term I believe we should advocate for North America to address domestic drug policy as an education and rehabilitation matter and, in foreign matters to address crop substitution, which, if well approached, should lead to a fundamental agrarian reform in countries such as Colombia (originally in Spanish a re-translation) "¿El Exterior también cuenta? Reflexiones de un académico norteamericano" [1999]

[1999] Henry Salgado Ruíz: Coca came to peasant economy as a survival strategy which, even if invested with criminal overtones, allowed them to reproduce biologically, socially and culturally. The transition from a group which has been expropriated to a group socially represented as a narco-farmer has not been easy or widely accepted. Peasants have been unceasingly fighting to dismount this imagery which has gradually been turning them into criminals and denying them their culture, society, values and way of living and feeling. They are standing up to a State that has dammed them to marginalization for over a century and, currently, to a society that is increasingly deaf to their reasoning and proposals. De expropiados de la tiera a narcoagricultores Problemática del campesinado amazónico colombiano [1999] français

[1999] Juan Guillermo Ferro et al Commercial coca crops emerged over 20 years ago and a new generation of peasant and indigenous youth already grow up in this economic setting, which does not offer greater economic alternatives and has slowly and fragilely been building a culture on the basis of this fact. The social-cultural transformations that have taken place in these socialization scenarios, in consumption and ethical behavior practices, are imbued by a context of violence and the development of illicit crops. Jóvenes, coca y amapola Un estudio sobre las transformaciones socioculturales en zonas de cultivos ilícitos Instituto de Estudios Rurales; IER Universidad Javeriana Javegraj, [1999].

1999] U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms U.S. State Dept. / BATF Broncos After their retirement from the military, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms acquired 22 ex-USMC OV-10Ds for use in Anti-drug operations. Eventually the State Department acquired these aircraft and today a program to continue refurbishing OV-10D SLEP airframes for use in anti-drug missions is being undertaken. The primary contractor for the work is DynCorp, and refurbishment is taking place at Patrick AFB near Cocoa Beach, Florida. These aircraft are being fitted with liquid herbicide spray gear, and have a satellite navigational system installed to find their way through the mountainous terrain of Central and South America. They are generally painted black overall and operate both during the day and at night. The sponsons and all offensive weapons are removed for this duty. There is a large herbicide tank in the cargo area (capacity of around 410 gallons) which also doubles as fuel tank for ferry flights. The wing tanks are used to provide enough fuel for the long ranges at which these operations happen. "[1999]

[2000] GAO United States General Accounting Office Challenges in Implementing Plan Colombia Statement of Jess T. Ford, Director International Affairs and Trade Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources, Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives [October 12, 2000]

[2000] Gonzalo Uribe Territory As a Life Option in the Putumayo “The peoples that live the territorial processes described in this paper are those that have decided to stay to defend their dreams or, at least, to be buried with them. This is a difference which must be understood when speaking generically about the 350,000 inhabitants of the Putumayo or of the million or more that live in the Colombian Amazonía. These peoples are signaled out as a critical component in the war which is currently displacing them and leading them into diaspora. It is therefore comes as no surprise that one of the sections contemplated by the social investment component of the Plan Colombia addresses this sector of the population and the "need" to relocate them. [ full article in Spanish ] El presente escrito esta condensado de los informes de consultoría realizados por el autor en el departamento del Putumayo en el año 2000.[2000] Joaquin Villalobos : Colombia, A Complex but Earthly Negotiation Saint Anthony’s College, Oxford University, March 2000. [full article in Spanish]

[2000] Letter from Gustavo Petro to US Congressmen The United States Congress is currently debating a foreign aid bill valued at $1billion, six hundred million dollars, which is sponsored by President Bill Clinton's Administration in conjunction with Andres Pastrana, the President of Colombia. If this aid package is approved, most of the funds will be earmarked for the purchase of military equipment. […]I, like most Colombians, am not opposed to receiving the proposed foreign aid -$1billion, six hundred million dollars is an amount that cannot be turned down at a time when Colombia is going through one of its worst economic crisis in history. However, I do firmly oppose the approval for US funds form military purposes on the grounds that favoring such a policy would only lead us into a war, the likes of which we have never seen. Mister Senator, US aid should be aimed at fostering life, not at letting death run wild. [February 15, 2000]

[2000] Olivier Pissoat: “In the 1980s, Colombia saw a return of widespread violence, constantly on the increase. Mapping the homicides per municipality offers a way of analysing this protean phenomenon, aggravated by the drug economy. Between phases of expanding and receding violence, the illusion of its diffusion becomes apparent.” La violence homicide en Colombie, MappeMonde [avril 2000]

[2000] Jean Rivelois : …mafias are built by acting against the countries that welcome them. From this perspective, the mafia uses war instruments, not to conquer the host country but to build itself a piece of its homeland in the host country by taking over by means of a forced or accepted domination, the immigrant populations that come from its own country. Délinquances, liens inter-régionaux et intégration communautaire Colloque organisé par le GREITD, l’IRD et les Universités de Paris I (IEDES), Paris 8 et Paris, [7-8 junio 2000]

[2000] Ibán de Rementería: The Drug War in Colombia and the Andean Amazon Region should be viewed as a conflict over the alternative, licit or illicit, use of the region’s natural resources. The maximum expression of this conflict is armed struggle due to international pressure and domestic failure to mediate between conflicting interests and resolve existing antagonisms. La guerra de las droga y los recursos naturales, Nueva Sociedad, 2000

[2000] Juan Gabriel Tokatlian Drug Legalization Controversy in Colombia: President Samper and the United States Recent drug-legalization history in Colombia, its episodic debate, and the occasional initiatives to this end have one key actor —President Ernesto Samper Pizano (1994-1998)— and one basic point of reference, the government of the United States. Accordingly, I will describe the chronological stages, and explain the conceptual evolution, covered by the issue of drug legalization in Colombia, identifying the significant role played by Ernesto Samper in this controversy and highlighting the influence of the United States in the manner of dealing with the matter. Essentially, it is possible to affirm that, if at one point narcotics legalization acquired any relative momentum in Colombia with citizen Samper, today this debate is wholly closed due to the experience suffered by Colombia during his presidential term. La polémica sobre la legalización de drogas en Colombia, El Presidente Samper y Estados Unidos (presentation en français)

[2001 Nora Segura Escobar: Colombia: A New Century, an Old War and More Internal Displacement -Colombia and the Panorama of Violence “At the dawn of the 21st century, Colombia clings to an uncertain hope of peace and seeks signs that might allow it to imagine a less anxious future. Many grassroots movements are attempting to introduce a new discourse of solidarity and to establish a vocabulary of reconciliation. At the same time, the power elites act on their own rationales and interests, in the name of the collective welfare and the various peace projects that they profess to represent. Meanwhile, an incalculable number of families and individuals, who have been violently expelled from the rural zones, cross the nation seeking security and protection in cities and towns. Most of them quickly shed the label of displaced and mingle with the poor urban masses, the majority of whom had already been displaced as a result of former violences. [2001]

Bruce Michael Bagley Globalization and Transnational Organized Crime: The Russian Mafia in Latin America and the Caribbean “Russian organized crime groups pose a unique law enforcement challenge, jeopardizing public safety throughout the world through their transnational criminal enterprises. Worldwide money laundering activity from Cyprus to the Cayman Islands and from Vanuatu in the Pacific to Venezuela; the assassination of American businessman Paul Tatum in Moscow; financial scams in New York; car theft rings in Europe; narcotics trafficking and money laundering alliances with Colombian and Nigerian drug lords and the Italian mafia represent but a few of the tentacles extended by Russian organized crime networks throughout the world. Currently 200 large Eurasian criminal organizations operate worldwide and have formed alliances with their criminal counterparts in 50 countries (including 26 U.S. cities).” , October 31, 2001

[2001] Document 20: Yes, We Have No Secrets United States Embassy Bogota [Colombia], Americans in Danger in Colombia. How Many? Where? What Do They Do?, Confidential, 8 pp. Source: Freedom of Information Act Request [April 5, 2000],

[2001] Letter to Mary Robinson -UN High Commissioner for Human Rights REF: Aerial fumigations against crops used for illicit purposes violate Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law since they are a hazardous to food sources, human health and the environment. - Human Rights, Environmentalist and Peace organizations request that the Colombian and United States governments halt the glyphosate + Cosmo Flux 411 and Cosmo In-D chemical war against Colombian civilians. Bogotá, July 17, 2001

[2002] Rocio Moreno-Sanchez, David S. Kraybill and Stanley R. Thompson: An Economic Analysis of Coca Eradication Policy in Colombia , We estimate an econometric model of coca production in Colombia. Our results indicate that coca eradication is an ineffective means of supply control as farmers compensate by cultivating the crop more extensively. The evidence further suggests that incentives to produce legal substitute crops may have greater supply - reducing potential than eradication Ohio State University, May 2002

[2002] Joaquín Roy: Europe: Neither Plan Colombia, nor Peace Process --From Good Intentions to High Frustrations –“European perception has been complicated by the many successive versions and interpretations of the Plan Colombia officially announced by the Colombian government. ....two complementary approaches developed by Bogotá and Washington to sell the same product to two different audiences (basically, the Colombian population and the U.S. Congress)...” [junio2002]

[2002] Henry Salgado Ruiz From the beginning of the 1980s Amazon Region peasants, ―through their different organizations unions, cooperatives and Juntas de Acción Comunales― have submitted diverse proposals to the government with the view of solving the numerous problems faced by frontier settlement regions. Nonetheless, the government’s response to these peasant grievances has been timid, minimal social investment and large investment in aerial spraying of the Amazon region’s society and natural resources. (Investigador CINEP): Plan Colombia, respuesta militar a una problemática social [octubre de 2002]

[2002] Jaime Zuluaga Nieto One of the most dramatic aspects of Colombia’s humanitarian crisis is forced displacement. Millions of Colombians have been forced to flee their lands. The narcotics traffic’s involvement has another repercussion: turf wars to control the lands planted with illicit crops in order to take over these earnings. In effect, territorial control is one of the main causes of forced displacement. And, as concerns State policies, the emphasis placed on the relationship between the narcotics traffic and domestic warfare by the Plan Colombia addresses the issue through a strategy of aerial spraying in the areas under guerrilla control and thus, this counterinsurgency strategy is also at the root of forced displacement. La guerra interna y el desplazamiento forzado (en mamacoca) Universidad Nacional de Colombia [fin 2002]

[2002] Maria Eugenia Castro: This article is part of a larger research project on Plan Colom-bia. Originally conceived as a Colombian government strategy for economic, social and environmental reconstruction in areas affected by the country’s armed conflict, the Plan has ultimately been manipulated by the United States into an anti-narcotics operation. […] The losers are Colombian indigenous peoples, peasants and ecosystems, and policies for peace and alternative development. The winners are drug trade and distribution networks, international companies who supply inputs for drug production, American banks where most of the proceeds from drug trafficking are laundered, American arms and chemical manufacturers, and the warrior and counterinsurgent policies that allow the U.S. to intensify a neoliberal, globalizing capitalist development model while maintaining control over a territory they consider strategic. Plan Colombia, cultivos de uso ilicito, fumigaciones e impacto ambiental [2002

[2003] A Productive Erradication Porposal - [2003] María Mercedes Moreno: Humanitarian Considerations of Fumigaton_Six Thousand Signatures Say It Has to Stop[2003]Bernardo Pérez Salazar “Variations on the thoughts of a shaman about nature and human purpose "A Shaman speaks his mind before officials who threaten to eradicate illegal coca crops in Colombia. Sustainability has to do with values, which cannot be dealt with as scientific or legalistic “truths”. It is a matter of learning how to manage our needs and aspirations in order to expand the possibilities of human development. […] What to do with nature is something to be contested in the public’s mind. Even in the face of depletion of the goods and services that flow from present stocks of natural assets, technology implicitly supports the belief that it brings safe and sustainable satisfaction of needs and aspirations. Yet a world of unlimited possibilities is a tricky appeal. It may lead us to reduce —not increase— the asset base which future generations will inherit. […]The trap lies in the idea of “optimal substitutability”. It increases the value of the capital stock available for income generation and is considered at present as an optimal path for accumulating assets. Yet it is possible that in the future, people may find other human potentials to be developed, not necessarily based on more abundant and perfected goods. If so, optimal substitution may no longer be an optimal accumulation path for coming geneeations. Technology in the future may allow people to reverse depletion. But it will be at a cost to those generations upon whom today’s values and parameters are being imposed. MamaCoca [2003]

Report of the Greek Presidency on the High Level Conference on Drugs At the opening of the Conference the Greek Presidency stressed the need for cooperation and coordination of the activities of the EU Member States and for open dialogue; it was also necessary to seek pragmatic and effective policies based not on theoretical standpoints, but on day-to-day practice and scientific knowledge. The acceding States were urged to participate actively in the formulation of the European Union's policy on the issue of drugs. The Presidency explained that its intention with this Conference was to encourage dialogue, so that the different opinions expressed could be brought together, leading to a more effective policy. It was also emphasized that the aim of the Conference was, through the exchange of views, to contribute to the establishment of an EU position at the forthcoming 46th session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) to be held in Vienna from 9 to 17 April 2003.

[2003] K. Larry Storrs and Nina M. Serafino Andean Regional Initiative (ARI) FY2002 Supplemental and FY2003 Assistance for Colombia and Neighbors FY2002 (en mamacoca) Required Reports on Human Rights Conditions and Eradication Spraying. The FY2002 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act (P.L.107-115) contains requirements for two certifications on human rights performance and one report on the proper usage and safety of the chemicals used in eradication spraying, and on the implementation of alternative development programs. The first human rights certification was issued on April 30, 2002, the second on September 9, 2002. On September 4, 2002, the usage and safety certification was issued, along with information on alternative development programs. [Updated January 8, 2003]

[2003] Report prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the Director of Central Intelligence Crime and Narcotics Center Terrorist and Organized Crime Groups in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of South America: “This report assesses the activities of organized crime groups, terrorist groups, and narcotics traffickers in general in the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, focusing mainly on the period since 1999”. [Julio 2003]

2003] Rodrigo Uprimny: The debate on the legal regulation of drugs is a transcendental issue in our modern world for at least three reasons: on the one hand, because psychoactive substances abuse and the narcotics traffic are two problems faced by most of our contemporary societies. On the other hand, because dominant policies based on what we know as Prohibition, and maximal criminal strategies, are vehemently questioned; not only because they have shown themselves to be ineffective but also because of the suffering they cause. Lastly, because this debate allows us to think through an issue which, even if age-old, is still highly relevant: the criminalization of certain behavior in democratic societies. Drogas, Derecho y Democracia. Profesor Facultad de Derecho , Universidad Nacional de Colombia

[2003] Alvaro Camacho Guizado (editor) et al.: The English version of this book compiles the conferences submitted with the framework of the Seminar “Internationalization of the Colombian Conflict –Implications for the Amdean Countries” held at the Carleton University in Ottawa El conflicto colombiano y su impacto en los países andinos, CESO-Uniandes [octubre 2003]

[2003] Helling CS et al. : Identification of Erythroxylum taxa by AFLP DNA analysis. “Erythroxylum coca, indigenous to the Andean region of South America, is grown historically as a source of homeopathic medicine. However, in the last century, cultivation of E. coca and several closely-related species for the production of illicit cocaine has become a major global problem. Two subspecies, E. coca var. coca and E. coca var. ipadu, are almost indistinguishable phenotypically; a related cocaine-bearing species also has two subspecies (E. novogranatense var. novogranatense and E. novogranatense var. truxillense) that are phenotypically similar, but morphologically distinguishable. The purpose of this research was to discover unique AFLP DNA patterns ("genetic fingerprinting") that characterize the four taxa and then, if successful, to evaluate this approach for positive identification of the various species of coca. Of seven different AFLP primer pairs tested, a combination of five proved optimal in differentiating the four taxa as well as a non-cocaine-bearing species, E. aerolatum. This method of DNA fragment separation was selective, and faster, for coca identification, compared with analyses based on flavonoid chemotaxonomy. Using the 5-primer AFLP approach, 132 known and unknown coca leaf accessions were evaluated. Of these, 38 were collected in 1997-2001 from illicit coca fields in Colombia, and all were genetically differentiated from coca originating in Peru and Bolivia. Based on the DNA profiling, we believe that the Colombian coca now represents a hybridization of E. coca var. ipadu. Geographical profiling within Colombia also seems feasible as new coca production areas are developed or new types of coca are introduced within traditional growing areas.” Alternate Crops and Systems Laboratory, Plant Sciences Institute, Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, [2003]

[2003] Phillip Ryan_ Putumayo's Last Believer Plan Colombia fumigations spray a commercial herbicide product mixed with additional chemicals to increase potency and adhesion. The resulting "cocktail" sprayed in Colombia has never been tested, as far as the public knows. Therefore, the label guidelines for the commercial product are unlikely to provide adequate protection for the mixture being sprayed.(19) But even according to Roundup product labels, the spray program is in gross violation of label restrictions. PANNA [2003]

[2003] GAO: Drug Control: Coca Cultivation and Eradication Estimates in Colombia: As part of its support for the Colombian National Police, the Office of Aviation uses airborne digital cameras to photograph coca fields for targeting aerial spraying and, afterwards, to help estimate the number of hectares eradicated. Through computer analysis, the Office of Aviation analyzes the light reflecting off the vegetation to identify coca. The digital photos can be taken anytime weather permits and are targeted over areas where the Colombian National Police intends to conduct or has conducted aerial eradication operations. Also, because the Office of Aviation wants to identify any coca fields for aerial eradication, it includes coca seedlings and mature, damaged, and dead plants in its definition of a coca field. [ 8 de enero 2003]

[2003] Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth W. Bishop : “The National Drug Control Strategy: Effectiveness of Eradication in Colombia , “One of the gravest environmentalist concerns is the severe damage eradication poses to the cananguchales, small oasis’s in open Amazon terrain and a strategic component of the Amazon ecosystem. Permanent pools of water surrounded by palm trees, the cananguchales play host to a wide range of animals and birds while serving as drinking spots for cattle and wild animals. Situated at lower points in the terrain, they are susceptible to chemical spraying from nearby fields. Although uncertainty and disagreement persist about exactly how the chemical is finding its way into the ecosystem, many of the palms trees are loosing their absorbent properties, causing the cananguchales to dry out and the surrounding vegetation and the microecosystem to perish”., Strategy Research Project [7 de abril 2003]

[2003] GAO Specific Performance Measures and Long-term Costs for U.S. Programs in Colombia Have Not Been Developed In addition to hiring a contractor to help with the Aviation Service’s operations, NAS has initiated a program to train T-65 spray plane pilots and plans to begin training search and rescue personnel so they can accompany the aerial eradication missions. NAS officials stated that the contractor presence should decline and the police should be able to take over more of the eradication program by 2006, when NAS estimates that coca and poppy cultivation will be reduced to “maintenance levels”— 30,000 hectares and 5,000 hectares, respectively. [june 2003]

[2003] Paul E. Simons (Acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) (no longer online) U.S. Narcotics Control Initiatives in Colombia “Our aim is to spray opium poppy three times during calendar-year 2003. Through May, we have sprayed approximately 1,650 hectares of opium poppy, well on our way to meeting our target of spraying all remaining opium poppy in 2003. (…) In September 2002, the Department switched to a more benign glyphosate formulation; ..." Hearing before the Senate Drug Caucus [3 de junio 2003]

[2003] Sheridan Pauker: Spraying First and Asking Questions Later: Congressional Efforts to Mitigate the Harmful Environmental, Health, and Economic Impacts of U.S.-Sponsored Coca Fumigation in Colombia This Comment evaluates a set of conditions enacted by the United States Congress in a 2002 appropriations act to mitigate the harmful impacts of U.S.-sponsored aerial pesticide spraying of coca plants in Colombia. It finds that the conditions are somewhat novel in that they explicitly apply U.S. environmental law to joint U.S.-Colombian activities taking place in Colombia. The State Department's compliance with Congress's conditions, however, is the subject of criticism. Yet, this Comment finds that the adequacy of this compliance is unlikely to be subject to judicial review. For this reason, lack of an explicit enforcement mechanism in the statute greatly weakens its potential to mitigate the human health, environmental, and human rights impacts of the spraying program.[June 2003]

[2003] Connie Veillette and Jose E. Arvelo-Velez : Colombia and Aerial Eradication of Drug Crops: U.S. Policy and Issues Analyst in Latin American Affairs Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade Division: “Spraying is conducted by the Colombian National Police with the support of the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics Control and Law Enforcement Affairs (INCLE), the Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the U.S.Embassy in Bogotá, using U.S. citizens, third-country nationals, and Colombian personnel contracted through DynCorp Aerospace Technologies by the State Department.” [...] Aerial eradication is a key counternarcotics element of U.S. assistance to Colombia under Plan Colombia and the Andean Regional Initiative (ARI). TheUnited States has allocated approximately $265 million to finance aerial eradication since 2000 when U.S. counternarcotics funding and involvement in Colombia expanded. For aerial eradication, the United States finances spray aircraft, maintenance, fuel, herbicide, and related operational expenses, using civilian contractors to carry out missions. The U.S. Congress has conditioned U.S. funding on a determination from the Secretary of State that the herbicide used complies with U.S. and Colombian regulatory requirements, and poses no reasonable risks to human health and the environment. Congress has also required the Secretary to determine that adequate mechanisms exist to process complaints of those who claim harm to health and licit crops due to fumigation. In addition, funds may not be used for fumigation if alternative development programs, that encourage small farmers to abandon illicit crops in exchange for government assistance for alternative crops, are not being implemented. [28 de agosto 2003]

[2003] Congressional Research Service Latin America and the Caribbean: Issues for the 108th Congress examines issues in U.S. policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean, focusing especially on the role of Congress and congressional concerns. The 108th Congress is continuing to scrutinize indicators of the ARI’s effectiveness, and to debate the policy’s effectiveness. According to United States andColombian officials, coca cultivation has dropped15%inColombia during 2002,..”. (…)However, according to the Administration, during 2002, coca cultivation again picked up in Peru and Bolivia, reversing a declining trend there. As the overall cultivation in the Andean Region has appeared to have changed little over the past several years, despite changes in individual countries, some policymakers have argued that the “supply side” policy of stemming drug production at the source is inevitably a losing battle. They argue that policy should focus on the “demand side” inevitably a losing battle. [Updated July 2, 2003]

[2003] International Drug Control Policy: Background and U.S. Responses« Manual eradication requires significant time and human resources, reportedly involving upward of 20 work-hours of effort to pull up and destroy one hectare of coca plants. Aerial application of herbicide is not legal or feasible in many countries and is expensive to implement where it is permitted”. August 13, 2013

[2003] Judith Walcott: Spraying Crops, Eradicating People "We always used to have a pharmacy in the jungle. But now we can’t find the trees and animals that we need. The animals and fish have disappeared. The birds, too. We have never seen anything like this before. It has to be the result of the spraying. We notice the effects immediately after the area is sprayed. Birds, animals, and fish begin to disappear within a few weeks. The health effects linger for weeks, and even longer." -Indigenous Shuar leader from Sucumbíos, Ecuador " , Cultural Survival Quarterly.[Winter 2003]

[2003] Departamento de Estado :Update on Report on Chemicals Used in the Colombian Aerial Eradication Program "The EPA made one direct recommendation to the Department of State related to spray program controls in its Office of Pesticide Programs Details of the Consultation for Department of State: Use of Pesticide for Coca Eradication Program in Colombia. On page 12 of that document, EPA recommended that due to the acute eye irritation caused by the concentrated glyphosate formulated product and the lack of acute toxicity data on the tank mixture, the Agency recommends that DoS consider using an alternative glyphosate product (with lower potential for acute toxicity) in future coca and/or poppy aerial eradication programs. [diciembre 2003] 3]

[2004] Javier De Quinto y Adriana Arcila: On top of the damages caused by aerial spraying, generally speaking, in order to plant one hectare of coca 4 hetaeras of the Amazon jungle are destroyed. In the case of poppy this means the rapid loss of 2,5 hectares of Adean cloud forest. Marihuana planting implies the destruction of 1.5 natural foliage to cultivate one hectare. Thus, just coca planting itself is said to have destroyed form 160,000 to 200,000 hectares of tropical jungle in the Orinoquia and Amazonia. The Andean Region is said to have lost approximately from 60,000 to 1000,000 hectares of highly valuable forestlands . :Inventario y valoración de los efectos económicos de la producción y venta de drogas ilícitas en Colombia (en mamacoca) Universidad San Pablo-CEU (Madrid) y Universidad de Manizales (Colombia) [January 2004]

[2004] Raphael Perl: (gone) Drug Control: International Policy and Approaches, A long-standing U.S. policy regarding international narcotics control is to reduce cultivation and production of illicit narcotics through eradication. In 2001, the United States supported programs to eradicate coca, opium, and marijuana in a number of countries. These efforts are conducted by a number of U.S. government agencies administering several types of programs. The United States supports eradication by providing producer countries with chemical herbicides, technical assistance and specialized equipment, and spray aircraft." Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, [13 de mayo 2004]

[2005] Elizabeth Tabares y Ramón Rosales Policies for the Control of the Offer of Coca: “The Sti Ck” And “The Carrot” “The interest of evaluating the effectiveness of the policies for eradication and alternative development in the control of the production of the coca le ave in Colombia has been expanding, mainly because there is no quantitative evidence related to the effect of the enormous investment made for the application of these polices. In this research, the effects of alternative development and air eradication were simultaneously studied, using municipal data for the period of 1998 – 200 2 in a model of area assignation for the crops, taking into account the producers ’ behavior in relation to the risk of the activity . The results show that the investment in alternative development has a small effe ct, although it is statistically significant, in the reduction of the ar eas with cultivated coca. An increasing of US$1,000 in projects of alternative development reduces 0.169 hectares of coca. Eradication doesn’t have a statistical effect in the expectations of producers if the variables eradicated area and frequency of eradication are considered. An increasing of US$1,000 in efforts of eradication reduces 0.128 hectares of coca , which we can assume that will b e cultivated o compensated in another part, inside or outside the municipal area.” Políticas de Control de oferta de coca: “la zanahoria” y “el garrote” Documento CEDE tomado de economia.uniandes.edu.co, Edición electrónica [febrero de 2005]

[2005] Bernardo Pérez Salazar e Iván Arturo Torres A.: Cundinamarca and Bogotá’s Paramilitary groups’ behavior in recent years has been erratic and thus hard to pinpoint. Similarly to what has happened in other regions of the country, in order to understand the appearance of the paramilitary requires information regarding the context that preceded it. Two determining factors are the presence of insurgent structures and response from public security forces. Los grupos paramilitares en Cundinamarca y Bogotá 1997 – 2005 [julio 2005]

[2005] UNODC /Colombia Coca Survey for 2004 Reporte anual (el primero se presentó en el 2002 con énfasis en Perú ) sobre la coca en Colombia en el 2004: "The continued increase of aerial spraying of illicit crops reached a record of 136,000 hectares in 2004. (…). The results of the survey showed that, at the end of December 2004, about 80,000 ha of coca were cultivated in 23 out of the 32 Colombian departments. This represented a decrease of 6,000 ha (or -7%) since 2003 when coca cultivation was estimated at about 86,000 ha. It is the fourth consecutive annual decrease bringing the total decrease in coca cultivation in Colombia since 2000 to impressive 51%. The decrease of 6,000 ha of coca cultivation resulted from a sustained level of aerial spraying and manual eradication that peaked at 139,200 ha, an increase of 3% compared to 2003." / Andean Presentation [junio 2005]

[2005] CRS: Connie Veillette_ For the US Congress - Plan Colombia: A Progress Report "In 2004, ONDCP reports that 337,000 acres of coca and 27,000 acres of opium poppy were sprayed. However, its recently completed survey concluded that the area under cultivation for coca remained stable in 2004, due to replantings of previously eradicated crops. Although the 282,000 acres of existing coca crops remained stable, ONDCP argues that cocaine production fell from 460 to 430 metric tons in the previous year because newly-planted crops are less productive." [Updated June 22, 2005]

[2005] Gustavo De Greiff I believe one of the tasks to be carried out by a Reform Movement is that of taking stock. I would suggest a multidisciplinary assessment involving scientists, doctors, economists, sociologists, lawyers and other professions. ¿Se está ganando la “guerra contra las drogas”? Un balance Red latinoamericana por la Reforma de las Políticas de Drogas (REFORMA) Buenos Aires [septiembre 2005]

[2005] Maria Alejandra Montes Sarmiento Maria Del Rosario Perea Garcés The goal is to study the historical evolution suffered by Colombia’s criminal policy due to the narcotics traffic from 1978 to 1997, time during which there were enormous social changes which gave way to substantial criminal transformations.¿Cómo el narcotráfico ha influido en la política criminal Colombiana? 1978- 1997 Universidad Javeriana [2005]

[2005] Aurélien Llorca: The dismantling of the large cartels has in effect provoked their atomization into numerous criminal structures in Colombia. According to General Soacha, in 2001 there were 220 criminal organizations is Colombia, most of them specialized in one or more of the cocaine-chain ventures. En 2003, a different source indicates that Colombia authorities have identifies 163 trafficking organizations, 40 of them tied to armed groups, and 4,000 small traffickers the traquetos. This information is closer to the data gathered b the Observatoire géopolitique des drogues that estimated that, in the mid 1990s, there were from 60 to 100 organizations and around 3,000 small cocaine-business entrepreneurs.« La France face à la cocaïne colombienne ; dispositif et actions extérieurs « [2005]

[2005] Major Darren C. Huskisson, (USAF) The Air Bridge Denial Program and the Shootdown of Civil Aircraft under International Law, (on mamacoca) "Although the incidence of collateral damage in U.S. combat operation has declined since World War II due to improved technology and strategy, the number of civilians killed in conflict has generally increased. The relationship between concealment warfare strategies and high numbers of civilian casualties generated is evident from conflicts in virtually every corner of the world from Cambodia and Uganda to Kosovo and Colombia.” Air Force Law review [2005]

[2005] Fernando Cubides Narcotics Traffic and Paramilitarism – An inextricable marriage? Since 1989, when the first global government analysis on the ties between the paramilitaries and the narcotics traffic filtered to the press, the conclusions were obvious even if the judicial repercussions were not. Narcotráfico y paramlitarismo ¿Matrimonio indisoluble? en Alfredo Rangel (ed) "El poder paramilitar" [2005]

[2005] Gina Paola Rodríguez Elites, Conflict and Drug Trafficking in Colombia “The following article refers to the current approach of the Colombian and North American security policies which have as fundamental premise the idea that drug trafficking constitutes the central factor to fight against, all this with a sight toward the achievement of peace in Colombia. Such a focus has facilitated two complementary policies conceived by the light of the friend-foe differentiation. On one side, there is the confrontation and the marginalization of the guerrilla (FARC-ELN), as an enemy, under the narcoterrorism label imposing its periferization of the political-constitutional frame. On the other hand, the assimilation and legal authentication of the paramilitarism like concomitant phenomenon with drug trafficking as a friend, allowing its insert in the political-constitutional frame and its social recycling of regional elites to "national" elites, as it seems to pronounce in the current Justice and Peace Law, 2005.

[2005] Maria Clmencia Ramirez: Aerial Spraying and Alternative Development in Plan Colombia Two sides of the same coin or two contested policies? “…while the composition of the aid has not changed, the counterinsurgency and/or counterterrorist objectives have become more and more explicit both in U.S. and Colombian policy. After 9/11, Colombia’s guerrillas became “narco-terrorists,” and the over- emphasis on a military response was reinforced with the authorization given by Congress and signed by President Bush in August 2002 (supplemental appropriations bill) to use counterdrug assets for counterterrorist purposes, reversing the Clinton executive order banning the sharing of non-drug intelligence.” Revista Harvard Review of Latin America [verano 2005]

[2005] En Wikileaks cables/05BOGOTA9402_a. operaciones de fumigación en el 2005 During the month of August, OV-10s operating from Larandia sprayed approximately 4,472 hectares, AT-802s operating from Barrancabermeja sprayed approximately 3,776 hectares of coca, and T-65s operating from Saravena sprayed 1,839 hectares of coca. This resulted in approximately 10,087 hectares of coca sprayed in August, for a total of more than 111,946 hectares of coca sprayed through August 2005. 4. (SBU) In August, 78 hectares of poppy were sprayed during the first week, and thereafter the T-65's were moved to the Department of Arauca for their coca campaign. Through August, 1,547 hectares of poppy have been sprayed in 2005. “ [3 de octubre 2005]

[2008] ref to] NAP.edu: Biological Control of Undesirable Plants This chapter … provides a brief overview of pesticide regulation in the United States and international considerations for testing mycoherbicides. Attention also is given to a conceptual framework for considering risks to animals and humans posed by biological control agents. “

[2006] Rafael Pardo Rueda The Global Struggle Against Illicit Drugs –The Colombian Experience: Colombian antidrug policy has gone through several stages depending on the country’s role in the drug trade. It has been marked by International and North American landmarks in the issue. La lucha Global contra las drogas ilícitas La Experiencia Colombiana , 2006

[2006] Raphael Perl International Policy and Approaches (on mamacoca) (Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division) "Within the framework of such a plan, crops could be purchased or else destroyed by herbicidal spraying or biological control agents while substitute crops and markets are developed and assured Updated". [2 febrero 2006]

[2006] Adolfo León Atehortua: This article seeks to study the means by which the narcotics trafficking networks have attempted to respond to the challenge posed by their illicit activity. This should allow us to analyze narcotics traffickers’ constantly evolving ways of organizing and developing their strategies and amazing ability adapt their networks. Undoubtedly, diverging social backgrounds and education condition how these networks are controlled and the way they develop the cocaine trade. Les organisations du trafic de drogues en Colombie , Cultures & Conflits [13 mars 2006]

[2006] Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) The Forgotten Drug War expendituress “The Bush administration has turned its attention to more immediate wars—terrorism, Iraq, Afghanistan—focus has naturally shifted away from the war on drugs. Hence, many experts are saying the mandate for counter-narcotics enforcement has become muddled. Money spent to disrupt supply chains is not spent effectively, they say, because new suppliers will always pop up so long as domestic demand exists in the United States. Marijuana, cocaine, and heroin are still widely available in the United States—which accounts for 60 percent of the world's demand for illegal drugs—and at lower prices than in previous decades. Ideological loggerheads have also emerged where goals of promoting democracy and cracking down on drug production have opposed one another, most notably in Latin America. [April 6, 2006]

[2006] Adam Abelson (FLACSO) U.S. Internal Politics and Regional Security “It is important for policymakers in Latin America to understand the role of internal inter-agency politics in defining U.S. foreign policy in the region. However, the explanation for that inconsistency largely lies in the complex internal power struggles among U.S. government agencies. This bulletin examines the process by which the U.S. has defined its regional security interests in the post-Cold War era, and how that process has played out in terms of U.S. military and economic aid to the region”. Policy Security and Citizenship Program Bulletin Nº3, [junio 2006]

[2006] Edgard David Serrano Moya: Drugs and Economy: A Reflection for Colombia “Two aspects are substantial in this presentation, the economic analysis of the production, traffc and consumption of “drugs” require a microeconomic glance that explains the mechanisms that operate in each of these stages. The consequences for society can be analyzed from the macroeconomic point of view, since these activities involve dimensions that due to their economic size and the use of the involved factors overflow other formal markets. This analysis aims to observe the impact of a policy of persecution as a solution. The consequences that generate the repression and the punishment of illegal market activities, as all the past experiences around prohibitions of the production, consumption and traffic of drugs have always generated more production, traffic and social costs; let’s remember the history of alcohol in the United States. History demonstrates that the punishment does not reduce the consumption in general terms, in Becker et al. (2006), following a model of crime and punishment with the conventional ideas of the neoclassic economy “the expectation of punishment elevates the price that the drug suppliers need to receive to be willing to assume the considerable risk that surrounds the drug business”. The price increases since the supply is reduced and the demand by the type of good is elastic, and the perspective of the greater price discourages the purchase and the consumption of illegal drugs, as it happens with legal goods and services. While stricter is the war against drugs, greater is the expectation of punishment, greater is price of drugs on the street and in general, less is the drug consumption. This hypothesis will be discussed from the microeconomic and macroeconomic aspects that can describe the drug market. Drogas y economía una reflexión para Colombia, 2006

[2006] Comunicado de las FARC-EP ] FARC-EP Press statement: We are convinced that the battle against the narcotics traffic cancer can only be won once and for all by designing a world strategy which would include the legalization of these products since these would put an end to the enormous earnings it generates. Comunicado de prensa September 2006

[2003/2006] J. P. Messina and P.L Delamater Defoliation and the war on drugs in Putumayo, Colombia " Multi-temporal analysis of three Landsat ETM+ images of the Putumayo department of Colombia, one of the primary regions of coca production in demonstrated that aerial spraying of defoliants under the US ‘Plan Colombia’ programme has had the unintended consequence of defoliating not only coca but also contiguous and interspersed native forest and food crop parcels". Department of Geography, Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, [2003/ 5 de agosto 2005 ] International Journal of Remote Sensing Vol. 27, No. 1, 10 January 2006, 121–128 [10 de enero 2006]

[2006] Wikileaks: Under Secretary Burns And U.s. Delegation Meet With President Uribe And Cabinet Members Uribe and Defense Minister Santos stressed the need to use Plan Colombia resources more flexibly to increase efficiency. Uribe said Colombia was ready to assume more responsibility as Plan Colombia "nationalization" proceeds. He suggested the 2007 aerial eradication target should be 160,000 hectares, with an additional 50,000 hectares eradicated manually. He proposed increasing the logistical support for three existing spray bases rather than build a new one. [7 de noviembre 2006]

[2007] Darío González Posso: The Colombian State needs to not only recognize the rights which have been violated but it also needs to restore these rights, including people’s right to their land, to their territory, to water, to women’s role in food production, food sovereignty as well as peoples’ right to decide on their own means of production and food. Vigencia de una reforma agraria democrática [febrero 2007]

[2007] Bernardo Pérez Salazar: Transnational Criminal Organizations, “Ungoverned Spaces” And An Emerging Doctrine The essay reviews literature about the emergence of modern transnational criminal organizations in the world. The specific case of Colombia is considered, and the direct and indirect consequences of policies implemented to combat transnational crime are discussed. Some final comments address the issue regarding the appropriateness of the doctrine behind policies developed during the past 50 years to fight transnational crime.Organizaciones criminales transnacionales, espacios ingobernados y una doctrina que emerge, Centro de Investigaciones Criminológicas de la Policía Metropolitana de Bogotá Subsecretaría de Asuntos para la Convivencia y Seguridad Ciudadana de la Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá [15 de agosto 2007]

[2008] Michelle Dion and Catherine Russler: Eradication Efforts, the State, Displacement and Poverty: Explaining Coca Cultivation in Colombia during Plan Colombia “This study models the sub-national pattern of coca cultivation in Colombia following the implementation of Plan Colombia (2001–2005). The results suggest that aerial eradication reduces coca cultivation primarily through creation of significant displacement and that coca cultivation is less intense in areas with a significant state presence. Further, coca cultivation appears to be more common in less developed, agricultural regions where access to legal markets precludes other forms of agriculture. Poverty has a significant, non-linear effect on coca cultivation; cultivation is most intense in regions of moderate poverty. Based on the findings, efforts to reduce coca cultivation should emphasise developing local public infrastructure and market access in conjunction with poverty reduction efforts and investment in alternative development. Cambridge University Press (not full access) [July1, 2008]

[2008] Ariel Fernando Ávila Martínez : The alliances between the guerrilla and armed groups that emerged alter paramilitary demobilization are of a tactical nature. This is to say, they are momentary and driven by pointed issues, and basically based on a lack of territorial dispute. They are mutual-convenience alliances and fairly unstable. They are neither for mutual patrolling or training nor for fighting together against public security forces. What they have in common are generally coca (cocaine) trafficking and/or supplies and, in some cases, it is a case of peaceful coexistence., Expansión territorial y alianzas tácticas 2008

[2008] Corporación Arco Iris Revista Arcanos: If we add up the reinserted paramilitaries who have returned to arms; those that did not demobilize; and emerging bands, we once again have 10,200 people up in arms spread out in 102 groups in 246 of the country’ municipalities. Much like the government says, the purpose of these nucleus is the narcotics traffic but most of them are taking up the characteristics of the previous Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (self-defense groups AUC); they attack social leaders, community organizations, political leaders, they seek territorial control and to control local power. The Águilas Negras” , for example, proclaim their anti-guerrilla stance and they can count on the permissiveness of certain sectors of the public security forces. “En qué está la guerra”, 2008

[2008] Ricardo Gómez Giraldo: Drug Traffic Prohibition “Drug consumption can alter the normal functioning of the mind and body; it has been a constant in man’s existence. However, it is impossible to speculate about the first drug consumed by man; even worse, to speculate about which society did it for the first time. Nobody knows who began using opium, or who discovered the effects of the coca leaf. Moreover, it is highly probable that we are still unaware of the existence of other substances consumed by man, but which are no longer used, and of which we will never know about. It is not easy to understand the reasons for drug trafficking or drug consumption if we view this fact from just one perspective, since there have been many pro-prohibition discourses. Throughout this article the author will take into consideration Colombian laws which ban such consumption, as well as those laws established by international agreements. Likewise, concepts from other researchers will be explored to support and clarify the reasons in question.”, "Prohibición del tráfico de drogas Universidad de Caldas (tomado Cultura y Drogas) [5 de marzo 2008]

[2008] Markus Schultze-Kraft With 25 million consumers in the US and Europe, the fight against the narcotics traffic demands shared responsibility together with Latin America. The Mexican cartels have set up bases in Central America, the Andean countries, the U.S., Europe and Africa. Narcotráfico en América Latina: un nuevo consenso internacional (Institute of Development Studies) [22 de October 2008]

[2008] Alfredo Rangel Suárez “In spite of the persistent phenomena of violence, Colombia has been and continues being one of the most stable countries in economic and political and institutional terms in Latin America. Yet, to overcome violence is still one of its main challenges for it immediate future. After almost 40 years of fruitless efforts to recover internal security, the Colombian state has been able to structure and execute a consistent and solid policy of peace and security which now allows it to recover its sovereignty over its territory, to weaken illegal armed groups and to guarantee the free exercise of its citizens' rights. This Democratic Security policy is based on the strengthening and modernization of its Military Forces and of the National Police; the adaptation of the laws to the requirements of security; the collaboration of the citizens with the authorities; the strengthening of the judicial power; and a wider institutional presence of the state in conflict zones. The demobilization of paramilitary groups has been an important advancement to recover security, and the beginning of talks with ELN could lead to their demobilization in the coming years. One of the most important and difficult challenges is to reach a peace agreement with FARC, which have been substantially weakened in the last years. Overcoming violence will give Colombia a vigorous push towards its economic and social development” “Colombia: Perspectivas de paz y seguridad [2008]

[2008] Labrousse et al : “This paper looks at the recent illicit cocaine trafficking geographical and geopolitical trends, from the South american producer regions to the western markets, through the various spaces filling this commercial gap into the Caribbean and Africa. New patterns have been emerging since two decades: production activities have been increasingly taking place in Colombia without being completely eradicated from Bolivia and Peru, consummation has been steadily increasing in Europe as well as in South America and Africa, while trafficking operations were blooming around the Caribbean and in Africa. The main reason for those developments is the balloon effect, the shift of trafficking networks according to day-to-day repression targets. Those movements have been eased off by the actual prohibition politics lack of will, although much energy has been put into the discourses surrounding them. This gap between talks and actions allows us to be very sceptical when it comes to a repression often used as a smoke screen to mask major geopolitical interventions.” Évolutions récentes de la géopolitique de la cocaïne, l’espace politique, [2008]

[2008] Juan Carlos Garzón When we hear that a Capo has been captured we tend to feel relieved, convinced that that is the end to his criminal activities. This is far form true. Behind bars, criminal organizations keep up their networks and connections active, they plan , order executions and continue controlling the illegal economy. Tercera parte La red criminal desde las prisiones en “Mafia & Co La red criminal en México, Brasil y Colombia, Editorial Planeta [2008]

[2008] Liliana M. Dávalos, Adriana C. Bejarano y H. Leonardo Correa "Disabusing cocaine: Pervasive myths and enduring realities of a globalised commodity_ "Aerial fumigation has not been particularly effective at eradicating the crop, and therefore has not limited production. both cultivation and aerial fumigation have had profound consequences for forests and natural resources, we review it here". International Journal of Drug Policy [11 de abril 2008]

[2009] Francisco E. Thoumi The relationship between illegal drugs and Violence: is there a cause and effect? The recent drug-associated violence on the Mexico side of the Mexico-U.S. border, the “narco-terrorism” in Colombia during the late 1980s and 1990s, and the tales of the prohibition era in the United States are all examples of criminal organizations that fight either against each other or against the state and cause an inordinate amount of cruelty, violence, and death. These and other episodes have led most people to conclude that “drugs cause violence” and therefore “to end violence on the Mexican border we have to eliminate illegal drugs.” These assertions imply that drugs and violence are intimately linked. But, is it true? [2009]

[2009] Peter Reuter: Systemic Violence in Drug Markets Even without the protection of the state and courts, illegal drug markets are generally peaceable. However occasionally specific markets exhibit high levels of violence. This essay examines the sources that might generate such violence, some internal to organizations (successional and disciplinary), some between organizations (territorial or transactional) and others between drug dealers and the state or its representatives. Particular attention is given to the extremely high rates of killing in the high level Mexican drug markets in 2007–2008 and what motivates the variety of targeted victims, including innocent parties and corrupt officials. The other episode examined in detail is the US crack market in the 1980s. The emphasis here is on the youth of the participants, the value of the drug itself and the intensity of law enforcement.” Crime Law and Social Change, 52(3):275-284 · September 2009

[2009] Eric Wilson and Tim lindsey (Editors) Governments of the Shadows -Parapolitics and Criminal Sovereignty, “The 'appropriation' of public functions by organised criminal cartels in Colombia, Sicily, and Russia are outstanding empirical examples of the state as a self-legitimating 'pariah entrepreneur' based upon effective provision of the commodity of protection; 'a private agent who manages to achieve monopoly over violence in a specific territory eventually becomes a public actor'. Successful 'state building' is thus invariably equated with the successful monopolisation of violence coupled with a self-sustaining collection of 'protection rent' , either in the form of 'tribute' or, in a more bureaucratised form, of 'taxation' .” Pluto Press, 2009.

2009] Wikileaks document release: Clare Ribando Seelke, June S. Beittel_ Colombia: Issues for Congress A Congressional Research Service Report _ In 2007, the Colombian government eradicated over 219, 529 hectares of elicit coca crops, up from 215,421 hectares/(n.e.:acres) eradicated the previous year. Aerial eradication accounted for 70% of the coca crops destroyed in 2007 . (...) The Colombian Ministry of Defense has asserted that, due to recent declines in U.S. security assistance, its forces will probably only be able to spray about 100,000 hectares in 2008 (as compared to the roughly 153,000 hectares they eradicated through aerial spraying in 2007). (L32250) (tomado de) [12 de enero 2009]

[2009] Benjamin Mackay : Forced displacement in Colombia, as a result of the country’s armed conflict, has brought about an unprecedented humanitarian crisis for the Colombian State. Today, Colombia is classified as the second country in number of displaced people, second only to Sudan. Le déplacement forcé en Colombie: une analyse causale , Université du Québec à Montréal Mémoire, février 2009

[2009] María Fernanda Benítez Ballesteros : “Consented Dependency” would be the background to the relationship with the United States within the framework of the combat against the narcotics traffic. Constant North American interventions in the country were endorsed one way or another by the counterproductive passivism on the part of those in power, who limited Colombia’s autonomy to face its own conflict. Furthermore, the OAS, apparently multilateral, was another of the mechanisms used by the USA to justify its interventions, both before and after the Cold War. Narcotráfico e intervención en Colombia 1980-2000 , Universidad Javeriana, [julio 2009]

[2009] [2009] Iban de Rementería: The humanitarian failure of the drug war is obvious. There is no doubt regarding the cruelty of the Drug War.; this is no metaphor or allegory, contrary to the war on poverty, hunger or cancer. The human costs –deaths, people harmed of this war for users and addicts and their families, communities and society. La guerra de las drogas: cien años de crueldad y fracasos sanitarios “, Nueva Sociedad [junio-agosto 2009]

[2009] [2009] Iban de Rementería: The humanitarian failure of the drug war is obvious. There is no doubt regarding the cruelty of the Drug War.; this is no metaphor or allegory, contrary to the war on poverty, hunger or cancer. The human costs –deaths, people harmed by this war for users and addicts and their families, communities and society. La guerra de las drogas: cien años de crueldad y fracasos sanitarios “, Nueva Sociedad [junio-agosto 2009]

[2009] Andrés Fernando Ortiz Sedano “In Colombia, precursor-control policies lack the necessary instruments to be enforced to contribute in the fight against drug trafficking. This is why it has become me necessary to look for a solution aimed at a more strict control, within the current frame of International Relations, setting real objectives that have real effects. The question is that even though an international frame exists, what I call the International Narcotics Control System; it is based on the rhetoric that reconciles between official positions (in the subject of precursor control) while it favors the chemical and pharmaceutical companies’ interests. …”El Control de Precursores Químicos para la producción de cocaína y el Sistema International de Control de Estupefacientes, Universidad Javeriana [septiembre 2009]

[2009] Adriana Rodríguez Salazar: The signature of a cooperation agreement between the Colombian and US governments sets a new landmark for regional security. The presence of “North American men in uniform” at seven of Colombia’s military bases on the grounds of the combat against narcotics traffic and terrorism is a threat to regional-security balance. The use of the combat against drugs is a risky bet for Washington considering its policies are being called into question due to its scarce results, the expansion of the narcotics traffic, organized delinquency, criminal bands and that of the armed groups. El acuerdo entre Estados Unidos y Colombia: una oportunidad para el diseño de una política regional de lucha contra el narcotráfico, en ENCOD, (en mamacoca) [septiembre 2009].

[2009] David Fernando Fonseca Pérez English: "The drug trafficking problem has become an issue not only for producer and consumer countries but also for transit countries which are beginning to become consumers too. That is why the frontier between Brazil and Colombia has been converted in a target for the fight against drugs, using tools such as air interdiction." Balance de las operaciones de interdicción aérea contra el narcotráfico entre Brasil y Colombia durante la administración Uribe I” Monografía de Grado Presentada como requisito para optar al título de Internacionalista En la Facultad de Relaciones Internacionales, Universidad Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Señora del Rosario Tesis dirigida por: Teniente David Fernando Londoño Semestre II, [2009]

[2009] Mylène Bruneau In October 2003 the OAS adopted a declaration on security in the Americas, the new United States’ security definition. It highlights that the distinction between internal and external issues can no longer be maintained since the new threats of a transnational nature affect all of the countries in the region. This definition is particularly true in the case of the narcoticsL’Amérique du Nord face au narcotrafic : une communauté de sécurité ? (en mamacoca) [automne 2009]

[2009] Thomas D. Williams: US Role in Massive Aerial Herbicide Spraying Revealed”, /massive role The Public Record ".. Gregory Lagana, a DynCorp spokesman. “We spray in Colombia, and there Glyphosate is used extensively. But we don’t have any complaints where we spray it and what we do when we spray it. If there are health problems in Ecuador, they are certainly caused by something else.” The spray itself, said Lagana, “is prescribed by the governments of Colombia and the United States. Monsanto makes the spray.“ [July 19th, 2009]

[2010] Camila Osorio: "El legado minero de Uribe", Among the manifold legacies left by the Uribe Government, his mining legacy is one of the most well-known. During his 8-year government, the area allowed by mining licenses went from 1,13 million to 8,53 million hectares. And the lands handed over in the páramos (Northern Andean unique cloud forest ecosystems that, in Colombia, produce from 70% -to 85 % of the water consumed in Colombia) more than doubled. Today, 6.3% (250 acres) have been deeded over for mining ventures.. La Silla Vacía,, October 14, 2010

[2010] General Accounting Office /Comptroller General of the Republic /Contraloría General de la República: Denounces that drug-control policy is centered on aerial spraying and even on increasing the amount of glyphosate in the mixture used per hectare. For this reason, the Comptroller’s Office Reports have highlighted how this strategy impacts fragile and strategic ecosystems and its overall environmental effects, as well as the balloon effect which leads to the geographical displacement of illicit crops, and the consequent need to combat them further without there being any real drug supply and demand reduction in the international arena. Julio César Turbay Quintero Conptroller (Accounting Office) "Estado de los Recursos y el Ambiente 2008-2009

[2010] Fabiola Piñacue: The coca leaf is not a plant that kills, it is our common heritage which needs to be defended, it is our spiritual and material nourishment. En defensa de la Hoja de Coca "La Hoja de Coca no mata, es un bien común que hay que defender, es nuestro alimento espiritual y material".. 3 de marzo 2010

[2010] Serge Brochu· et Chantal Perras: “International cooperation treaties have existed for decades, as well as the international drug traffic. However, they did not yet succeed in efficiently fighting international drug trafficking. This paper reviews the history of international traffic and illustrate the discussion with known examples like those of Colombia and Afghanistan.” Le marché des stupéfiants dans une société mondialisée Rivista di Criminologia, Vittimologia e Sicurezza – Vol. III - N. 3, Vol. IV –N. 1 –[Settembre 2009-Aprile 2010 ]

[2010] CRS: Liana Sun Wyler _Congressional Research Service International Drug Control Policy "The United States supports programs to eradicate coca, opium, and marijuana in a number of countries, including primarily Colombia and Afghanistan These efforts are conducted by a number of U.S. government agencies and contractors that administer U.S. eradication programs providing producer countries with chemical herbicides, technical assistance and specialized equipment, and spray aircraft. In FY2009, the State Department spent approximately $432 million on international eradication programs." [8 de marzo 2010]

[2010] Hugo Cabieses Hugo Cabieses Cubas: "Coca Crops, the Mythical Numbers and the Real Issues" In the past two months 4 reports have been published on the results of the “Drug War” and a survey on the coca crops used for illicit purposes in the Andean countries. Much like the years before, it’s like a world championship to see which of the governments is the least worse. While the true white collar narcotics traffickers and hit met with briefcases and chainsaws are running around loose, generally in collusion with those selfsame authorities and agents who are said to combat the drug scourge Cultivos de coca, la danza de las cifras y los temas de fondo /ENCOD Lima, 7 de julio 2010

[2010] Néncer Losada Salgado Néncer Losada Salgado “Relationship Between Cocaine Traffickers and FARC: 1980s", Abstract: "Starting from an exhaustive bibliographical revision, this article pretend to accomplish two objectives: in the first place, to describe in a shallow way the existing relationship around the coca-cocaine market between the traffickers of cocaine ―mainly some belonging to the Medellin group such as Rodriguez Gacha― and the FARC guerrilla during the 80s; and secondly, starting from this description, to demonstrate that the relationship between these two actors, if it was given ever in its moment, occurred in a functional way, that is to say, for convenience of individual interests, and as a consequence, it wasn’t a stable relationship between two partners, as it is suggested by many people, and as it was guaranteed under the drug terrorism thesis at that time defended by the Colombian and the United States governments in command.” Relación entre traficantes de cocaína y las FARC: Años 80 Universidad de Caldas, Cultura y Drogas, 23 de septiembre de 2010

Crisis Group: Colombia: Report 34 / Latin America & Caribbean President Santos’s Conflict Resolution Opportunity President Juan Manuel Santos has taken welcome steps toward reform in his first ten weeks but now must put in place and execute a truly comprehensive and integrated conflict resolution strategy for Colombia to secure sustainable peace. 13 October 2010

[2010] The Nossal Institute for Global Health: Dependent on Development - The interrelationships between illicit drugs and socioeconomic development (en mamacoca) "This report highlights the multifaceted relationships between illicit drug production, trade and use, and SED, and then demonstrates the ways in which the implementation of illicit drug control policies often hinders development sector gains; and furthermore, the ways in which many development sector policies actually increase vulnerability to illicit drug production, trade and use". The Open Society Institute's (OSI) Drugs and Development Program [December 2010]

[2010] CRS: Liana Sun Wyler _Congressional Research Service International Drug Control Policy.] -The FY2010 “Drug Majors” In an effort to deter foreign governments from aiding or participating in illicit drug production or trafficking, the President may suspend U.S. foreign assistance appropriations to countries that are major illegal drug producers or major transit countries for illegal drugs, known as “drug majors.” … For FY2010, the President has identified 20 drug majors ( ) Defining the Drug Majors as a country in which:… (c) 5,000 hectares or more of illicit cannabis is cultivated or harvested during a year, unless the President determines that such illicit cannabis production does not significantly affect the United States (Note: The question begging to be answered is how many hectares of cannabis does the United States have since apparently nowhere is it ever officially surveyed). March 8, 2010

[2011] Corporación Arco Iris: Things are nota as bright as they look. This is Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris’s 4th report. The goal is to tell the country what happened in 2011. –The (criminal bands) Bacrim represent in at lease 209 municipalities, mainly in the Caribbean Coast, Pacific Coast and Antioquia.- In 2011, the Bacrim accounted personally for the displacement of 11.898 people. -70% of these displacement occurred in Atlántico y Córdoba. -En 2008, Nuevo Arco Iris estimated a total of 10.200 made up the “ Bacrim”, figure which was discounted by the government establishment. If, up to now, 13.000 members have been captured, according to General Naranjo, why then have they not been able to put an end to these illegal armed groups? Córdoba is one the departments which has been the hardest hit by these bands. Política y violencia en el 2011 – Las cuentas no son tan alegres, 2011

[2011] Ignacio A. Navarro : Cocaine Cities Exploring the Relationship between Urban Processes and the Drug Trade in South America (in mamacoca) The relationship between the cocaine trade and urban land markets in South America has been overlooked by the mainstream economics and urban studies literature. This paper examines two avenues through which the cocaine trade can have a large impact on urban development in producer countries: (i) through an employment multiplier effect similar to that of other legal exports, and (ii) through money laundering using urban real estate. We test our hypotheses using the Bolivian case and find that urban growth patterns are closely related to fluctuations in cocaine production [marzo 2011]

[2011] Ariel Ávila y Bernardo Pérez Criminal markets could not subsist, expand or crry out its activities in certain territories without the existence of the large corruption networks that sustain them. Lawyers, judges, district attorneys, members of State security forces are part of these networks. "Mercados de criminalidad en Bogotá Corporación Nuevo Arco Iris [mayo 2011]

[2011] Juan David Laverde Palma Agenda to solve the narcotics traffic problem and the violence it generates – The Narcos’ Secret Offer “Agenda para solucionar el problema del narcotráfico y la violencia que genera”, (ver referencia en El Espectador “La oferta secreta de los narcotraficantes” -4 de mayo 2014) [junio del 2011] /Ever since he was freed from prison and is no longer a part of the Ejéricto de Liberación Nacional (ELN), Francisco Galán is taking part in several initiatives and is dedicated to finding solutions to put an end to Colombia’s violence. He was thus invited by Germán Chica (Santos former Policy Advisor) to this controversial process. Supposedly, some of the people working on this proposal received funding form the narocs. He says he knows nothing of the funds mentioned as payment, but “if the narcos say so, there must be something there." El Especador No supe de plata, pero si lo dicen los narcos, algo debió haber”: F. Galán. May 11,2014

[2011] David Mansfield: Assessing Supply-Side Policies and Practice: Eradication and Alternative Development, /Global Commission on Drug Policies: "Colombia is currently the only coca producing country to allow chemical eradication and the aerial application of glyphosate is an integral part of 'Plan Colombia' but even here there the Government has expressed growing concerns over its effectiveness and has pushed for greater focus on manual eradication. The government of Afghanistan has rejected a number of requests for chemical agents to be used in the destruction of opium poppy". [24-25 de enero 2011]

[2011] Luis Carlos Reyes: Estimating The Causal Effect of Forced Eradication on Coca Cultivation in Colombian Municipalities, "oca eradication has been aggressively pursued by the Colombian government to reduce the amount of land that agricultural households in the Andean country devote to this illegal crop. However, little work has been done to assess the causal effect of the policy on land allocation decisions. I use a six year panel of observations covering the entire country for the years 2001-2006 to estimate this effect at the municipality level, exploiting exogenous sources of variation in eradication and taking an IV approach to estimation".Michigan State University [26 de enero 2011]

[2011] Greenpeace: Herbicide tolerance and GM crops Why the world should be Ready to Round Up glyphosate "This report examines the environmental and health implications of the widespread and intensive use of the herbicide glyphosate in association with GM (Roundup Ready) crops. The evidence detailed in this report demonstrates that glyphosate-based products can have adverse impacts on human and animal health, and that a review of their safety for human and animal health is urgently needed. … GM herbicide-tolerant crops, as epitomised by GM RR crops, are not part of a sustainable agriculture system. As with all GM crops they have been developed for, and are economically profitable within, an industrial agriculture system that involves large-scale monocultures that depend on costly, polluting inputs such as herbicides, synthetic fertilisers and fossil fuels." [junio 2011]

[2011] Michael Antoniou et al.: Roundup and birth defects Is the public being kept in the dark? “Concerns about the best-selling herbicide Roundup® are running at an all-time high. Scientific research published in 2010 showed that Roundup and the chemical on which it is based, glyphosate, cause birth defects in frog and chicken embryos at dilutions much lower than those used in agricultural and garden spraying. (…)This report provides a comprehensive review of the peer-reviewed scientific literature, documenting the serious health hazards posed by glyphosate and Roundup herbicide formulations.” Earth Open Source [June 2011]

[2011] Carolina Pineda Plan Colombia: A Political, Economic, and Cultural Analysis of Coca and Poppy Eradication Projects in Putumayo, Colombia "In the case of Putumayo, local indigenous leaders reported that displacement out of the region following overhead aerial spraying was, in many instances, the only alternative for their communities (Rights and Democracy 2001). In this sense, it is clear that aerial spraying in Putumayo, while contributing little to decreasing coca and poppy production in the region is, in fact, quite successful in accomplishing one thing: clearing out vast regions of land for alternative purposes. The fact that Putumayo is a region characterized by its richness in minerals and natural resources adds further clarity to our understanding of Plan Colombia's goals. Unlimited access to oil reserves". The University of Western Ontario [6 de junio 2011]

[2012] Araceli Manjon-Cabeza: The war on illegal drugs kills more people than their consumption. Drug trafficking generates corruption, political instability and violence. It’s an extremely lucrative business that funds organized crime. Legalization does not mean losing the war. It means looking for other scenarios to win the war. It is not losing control but rather beginning to get it back La Solución_Legalización”, Debate abril 2012

[2012] These are MamaCoca’s noted transcription and video links to the Debate on Drug Policy convened in the Colombian Congress- According to, for example Ernesto Samper one of the many speakers, with the exception of marijuana, which is 60% of the whole world drug market, all of the world’s cocaine production could well fit into 40 25-ton trucks.. and we can’t even put an end to these 60 truck which are destroying countries like Colombia. Debate en el Congreso de la República de Colombia "Política Antidrogas en el Marco Internacional y de Seguridad", convocado por Juan Manuel Corzo May 2012

[2012] Ejercito de Liberación Nacional ELN Voces: The ELN has publicly stated that it is opposed to criminalization of the phenomenon and that, only through the regulated and licit use of the products derived from the coca leaf, will it be possible to face the problem in a suitable manner. El fracaso de la guerra contra las drogas 16 de abril 2012

[2012] Nigel Inkster and Virgina Comolli _Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States: the Problems of Prohibition “By examining the destabilising affects of prohibition, as well as alternative approaches such as that adopted by the authorities in Portugal, this book shows how progress may be made by treating consumption as a healthcare issue rather than a criminal matter, thereby freeing states to tackle the cartels and traffickers who hold their communities to Ransom.” The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) April 17, 2012

[2012] Henry Salgado Ruiz Abstract “This thesis demonstrates that the Colombian peasantry has been constituted as such, from the construction and implementation of economic and agro -productive practices compatible with the environment; the habitus and costumes that the peasantry itself has invented and recreated in the daily interaction with its family and community; and from the political struggle that it has undertaken not only to demand from the Colombian state its social, territorial and judicial recognition, but also to halt the territorial advance of agrarian businessmen. For these reasons, the Colombian peasantry cannot be considered a conceptual category, a priori constructed, that is a-historically defined as a homogenous social group with the same characteristics at the global level. ..”El campesinado de la Amazonia colombiana: Construcción territorial, colonización forzada y resistencias, ” Universidad de Montreal Departamento de Antropología [junio 2012]

[2012] Ariel Fernando Ávila y Juan David Velasco Abstract: “Criticizing the conventional political theory, this article demonstrates that the rise of multiparty electoral competition, rather than improving the quality of democracy, ended up worse because increase the risk of emergence of candidates linked with criminal agents of different type (drug traffickers, guerrillas, paramilitaries and parapoliticians). This shows how the low institutionalization of the party system at the regional level makes easier and less costly in political and judicial terms, the relationship between politicians and bandits. Finally, it revised a couple of theories suggesting the electoral success of criminalized candidates as a product of patronage, income, poverty and party affiliation. The results of a non-parametric statistical model indicated the predictive limits of such theories. However, the authors find out that “fiscal laziness” is significantly associated with the likelihood of electoral success of candidates who allied themselves with illegal agents. Parapolíticos, narcos, guerrilleros y votos: revisitando el problema de la teoría democrática a partir del caso colombiano , 29 de julio 2012

2012] Jean-Michel Groult, Forbidden Plants – A history of Politically Incorrect Plants - Amaranta (quinoa), considered the “mother of all grains” in the Andes was one of the first plants to be banned by the Europeans. « Plantes Interdites », Ulmer, octubre 2012

[2012] Luís Felipe Pinzón y Hernando Sotelo Roja Effects Of Illicit Crops on Nature In Colombia Abstract:: "Colombia has increased the development of illicit crops (given that name by its integration of plants containing narcotic and psychotropic substances), where criminal activity is related to drug trafficking, whose consequences are social, cultural, economic and environmental . So, in the regions of the country affected by this scourge dominates the change in social structures, the presence of armed groups outside the law, forced displacement and hence the change in population density. Social impacts mentioned occur due to state interference is lessened by the emergence of insurgent groups linked to the crime described above. On the other hand, causes serious environmental damage to forest ecosystems as a result of disproportionate use of countless amounts of chemicals in order to raise the productivity of illicit crops. Since this latter area, the subject of analysis in this study based on information compiled by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - UNODC, the National Anti-Narcotics Police of Colombia - DIRAN and DNE. However, it is important to take into account their spatial, geographical and climatic conditions, namely to specify aspects such as: land area, diversity of climates, location in the intertropical belt, many species of terrestrial wildlife to understand the context of illicit crops on the environment in Colombia, since paradoxically, despite having excellent environmental, thermal floors are Colombians be suitable for planting various crops illegal." Efectos de los cultivos ilícitos sobre el medio natural en Colombia “ [2012]

[2012] Ginette Léa Gautreau: To Rid the World of the Drug Scourge: A Human Security Perspective on the War on Drugs in Colombia and Mexico,With thousands of heroin addicts returning from Vietnam, drug abuse became the U.S. government’s top priority, and if it could not curtail demand, its solution was to eradicate the supply. Nixon first declared a “war” on drugs in 1971 and targeted Mexico, which supplied over 80 per cent of the U.S. heroin market at the time, and became the first country where aerial crop spraying was applied in 1976.”School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa Paterson Review of International Affairs (2012) 12: 61–83.

[2012] Genevieve Dezso: Treating the Symptoms and Not the Cause: Analysis of the Environmental and Social Costs of the Drug War in Colombia "There is a lack of empirical evidence for contamination of coca-related chemicals in the field, although in the lab these chemicals are more toxic than glyphosate. Although the rate of deforestation associated with coca cultivation was high, a recent study showed that presence of coca does not predict deforestation as strongly as low economic status population, suggesting that presence of coca may not be a cause but rather a symptom of economic inequality and impoverishment. Expanding on this result, I looked at the factors that drive coca related deforestation, focusing on aerial fumigation and armed conflict, and confirmed that poverty is a dominant underlying factor. In light of this, I hypothesize that funding for eradication efforts would be better directed towards alleviating poverty"., Anthro 162 Durham [14 de diciembre 2012]

[2012] Sandra V. Rozo Are Anti-drug Programs Affecting Productivity? The case of coca leaf producers in Colombia "This paper uses two rounds of surveys collected by the United Nations Office for Crime and Drugs (UNODC) in Colombia between 2005 and 2010 to assess whether governmental intervention induces productivity innovation in coca cultivation. I estimate the effect of aerial spraying for seven outcomes in the short and the long-run including: i) kgs of coca leaf produced by hectare and per year, ii) kgs of coca leaf per hectare and per harvest, iii) number of harvests collected per year, iv) density of crops measured as distance between plants), v) productive age of coca plants in years, vi) number of workers in coca crops, and vii) total harvested areain hectares. To solve the endogeneity problem between these variables and aerial spraying I instrument the treatment with the proximity of coca producers to protected areas (e.g., natural parks and reserves). This last is possible since by explicit governmental mandate protected areas cannot be fumigated in Colombia. [May 25, 2012]

[2012] Putumayo President Santos assured that aerial spraying would not be resumed - I don’t believe that aerial spraying will come back. What’s important is that you, all of you, the community help this to happen by eradicating these crops that so harm this country. : Presidente Santos aseguró que no se retomarán fumigaciones aéreas .[7 de diciembre 2012]

[2013] Daniel Mejia and Pascual Restrepo : The Economics of the War on Illegal Drug Production and Trafficking, “For a reasonable set of parameters that match well the data on the war on drugs under Plan Colombia, our model predicts that the marginal cost to the U.S. of reducing the amount of cocaine transacted in retail markets by one kilogram is $1,631.900 if resources are allocated to eradication efforts; and $267.450 per kilogram if resources are allocated to interdiction efforts. Universidad de los Andes, Colombia - Department of Economics Boston University - Department of Economics Documento CEDE No. 2013-54, 64 Pages Posted: 14 Nov 2013

[2013] Francisco Thoumi The US incapacity to enforce federal drug laws - and the global consequences. “Anti drug policies are being increasingly questioned in some states of the American union. In the US nearly 20 states allow medicinal marijuana, and Colorado and Washington State have made recreational marijuana use legal, in clear violation of the United Nations conventions. This is why it is important to understand why the US, the main force behind the international drug control regime (IDCR) has pressured other countries to comply with it, but cannot enforce it domestically.” Open Democracy, November 2013

[2013] Ernesto Samper Pizano: The war against the narcotics traffic has cost the country, during the past three decades, the loss of over 4 million acres of good farm land and the pollution of almost the same extension due to the chemicals used for aerial spraying, growing these crops and cocaine processing and the deforestation of the ecologically valuable Amazon lands to grow coca. Drogues Prohibición o legalización _una nueva propuesta, "El daño ecológico: el caso de los cultivos ilícitos, Ed Debat, March 2013

[2013] RTS Guerre aux dealers If we are to believe the figures, Switzerland ( a country of 8 million inhabitants) consumes somewhere between 4 to 5 tons of cocaine a year. In 2010, 10 times more Ecstasy was seized than in the previous decade. March 14, 2013

Insulza OAS Report on the Drug Problem in the Americas The following documents are available from the Report on the Drug Problem in the Americas, which was presented today by the Secretary General of the OAS, José Miguel Insulza: May 17, 2013

[2013] Ginny Bouvier During the 17 round of the Peace talks between the FARC and the government from the 28th of November to the 8th of December 2013, the discussion focused on the illicit crops and narcotic traffic issue, the 4th subject on the agenda as agreed on the 26th of August 2012, : Ciclo 18: Cultivos ilícitos y narcotráfico Colombia Calls Diálogos de La Habana [15 de diciembre 2013]

[2013] María Clemencia Ramírez:The peasant marches were ended thanks to regional negotiations in search of global rural development which would allow the peasants not only to advocate for an end to forced eradication but for the development of their territories by means of polices other that the Drug War or security measures. Policies in whose design peasant communities have a say. Policies which do not do not deal with them as criminals for planting coca or stigmatize them as guerrilla collaborators but, on the contrary, treat them as full citizens with all the rights this entails."Contextualización de La Amazonia Occidental en el marco del problema de las drogas ilícitas" Foro Nacional de Paz 3er punto de la Agenda para la Terminación del Conflicto "Solucion al Problema de las Drogas" [Bogotá, 24, 25 y 26 de septiembre 2013

[2013] Alexander Rincón-Ruiz and Giorgos Kallis: Caught in the Middle, Colombia’s War on Drugs and Its Effects on Forest and People. “This expansion of the cultivation to new territories, has produced a subsequent increase of aerial fumigation in the new territories. In turn, and in a vicious cycle mode, this appears to have caused new displacement of coca cultivations. Interestingly in some cases, this has caused a return to areas previously fumigated. A consequence is that the number of municipalities fumigated increased accordingly…. Rather than an intensification of the policy, this can be seen as evidence of its failure to eradicate coca production in the targeted areas. The result is the geographical expansion of both coca and the war on drugs frontier”., Geoforum [2013]

[2013] Sebastián Quintero e Isabel C. Posada: Political Strategies for Treating Illegal Drugs in Colombia Abstract: “During the 1990's, institutionality in Colombia was negatively affected by large drug-dealing cartels. It was in this context where the Plan Colombia was born. This plan was a strategy to recover institutionality, reduce illegal coca and poppy plantations, weaken the economy of illegal insurgent groups, and restore investor confidence. Today, 13 years after the implementation of the Plan, the amount of illegal plantations has decreased. However they are still present, the traffic and trade of psychoactive substances have evolved, and consumption has increased. Therefore, there is now an evident societal need for strategies which address these issues that truly lead to sustainable development. Likewise, the community requires actions aimed at preventing this issue and promoting the care, treatment, and rehabilitation of those affected by this reality while providing adequate healthcare services.”Estrategias políticas para el tratamiento de las drogas ilegales en Colombia, Rev. Fac. Nac. Salud Pública vol.31 no.3 Medellín Sept./Dec. 2013

[2014] Juan Camilo Castillo, Daniel Mejía, and Pascual Restrepo: Scarcity without Leviathan: The Violent Effects of Cocaine Supply Shortages in the Mexican Drug War “Using the case of the cocaine trade in Mexico as a relevant and salient example, this paper shows that scarcity leads to violence in markets without third party enforcement. We construct a model in which supply shortages increase total revenue when demand is inelastic. If property rights over revenues are not well defined because of the lack of reliable third party enforcement, the incentives to prey on others and avoid predation by exercising violence increase with scarcity, thus increasing violence. We test our model and the proposed channel using data for the cocaine trade in Mexico. We found that exogenous supply shocks originated in changes in the amount of cocaine seized in Colombia (Mexico's main cocaine supplier) create scarcity and increase dr ug-related violence in Mexico. Center for Global Development, February 2014

Development Co - Operation Directorate Development Assistance Committee Why Illicit Drugs Cannot Be Ignored in the Post - 2015 Development Agenda For the Anti - Corruption Task Team. “The complex interrelationships between illicit drug markets and development are well recognized. Yet for over 30 years co-operation efforts between the development and counter - narcotics community have for the most part failed. D rug policies are focused on controlling substance abuse, whereas development programmes tend, with limited exceptions, not to recognize the drug issue as an explicit priority. In addition concerns about the repressive nature of some drug policies, and the narrow experience and knowledge of drugs issues within development agencies have limited the scope for constructive collaboration. This paper reviews both historical and contemporary policy discussions on the issue and outlines recent developments . This paper suggests a possible way forward to enhance cooperation between the two policy communities in their respective post 2015 and 2016 agendas. In particular we argue that drugs constitute a major threat to development notably in Africa, and a s such should not be forgotten in the post 2015 development agenda.” October 28, 2014

[2014] Vice: The Discovery of Mexico's First Coca Plantation Could Upend the Cocaine Business "For the first time ever in Mexico, the authorities discovered a coca plantation. …Until now, coca — the raw plant material used to manufacture cocaine — has been grown almost exclusively in the Andes. But there is virtually nothing to stop Mexican drug cartels from cultivating the plant domestically, and experts say it's actually surprising that it has taken this long for the crop to migrate north from South America. Now that the shift has seemingly begun, the consequences could be profound", 15 de septiembre 2014

[2014] Fundación Ideas para la Paz (FIP) The goal of this report is to present a compendium of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN’s stances through a review of the contents of the information published by this group in the past year. The ELN has stated that the only way to put an end to the narcotics traffic is by legalizing it. Consumer countries should assume co-responsibility for the problem. It is necessary to put an end to the large cartels and money laundering in industrialized countries. Chemical corporations that make precursors and the poison used in aerial spraying should be punished. Drug addicts are sick and they should be treated, not dealt with as criminals and they should have free medical assistance. Recopilación posturas del Ejército de Liberación Nacional, 2014.

[2014] Ruben Zamora FARC-EP About Glyphosate: powerful chemical weapon of transnational power "Now that they are going to resume aerial spraying, on 15 February, we hear voices of intellectuals and academics, very few in our opinion, in solidarity with the victims of chemical discharges, who also destroy crops, food, animals and territories. Indeed, one of the cases that will have to be investigated by the Commission of Clarification of the historical Truth of the Conflict -if the government were to accept the proposal made by the FARC-EP- will be the victims of glyphosate.[7 de febrero 2014]

[2014] Mackenzie Welch and Jason Mendoza Human Rights Considerations and Effectiveness of U.S. Sponsored Coca Fumigation in Colombia /lLetter to the Honorable Robert Menendez /senate " In addition to an ineffective policy, the system of legal redress for unlawful fumigation does not meet the needs of those affected, which directly violates the U.S. Congress’ 2004 conditions that initially allowed fumigation. Out of 4,535 claims for damages caused by fumigation in 2005, only 10 claimants were compensated and the rest were immediately rejected or are still being processed.viii Justice delayed is justice denied and as many of these claimants have lost their legal agricultural livelihoods as a result of fumigation, internal displacement increases, further undermining social stability in Colombia."Warthmore College , February 12, 2014

[2014] Aerial Eradication Advisor Bogota, Colombia Solicitation Number: PSC-15-012-INL The United States Government (USG), represented by the DOS, seeks applications from US citizens interested in providing PSC services as described in this solicitation Among others to: "Manage, coordinate, and supervise a $45 million (bilateral) (counter narcotics) CN program in Colombia. The program consists of approximately 200 direct support personnel including a robust aviation services support contract. Operate 13 AT-802 (modified) commercial agricultural spray aircraft from forward operating locations located throughout Colombia. Coordinate closely with other PSC personnel and multiple entities from the US Embassy, Bogota, Colombian National Police and all services of the Colombian military. "Issuance Date: 12/03/2014- Closing Date 12/31/2014

[2014] Socorro Ramírez: It’s Hard to Understand -"President Santos much like you have said that you are in favor of the medical and therapeutic cannabis initiative and have started addressing drugs as a public-health issue, you should free the Colombian State from its USA addiction to aerial spraying of crops destined for illicit markets". [10 de octubre 2014]

[2015] : The Lancet: “In March, 2015, 17 experts from 11 countries met at the International Agency for Research on Cancer ( IARC; Lyon, France) to assess the carcinogenicity of the organophosphate pesticides tetrachlorvinphos, parathion, malathion, diazinon, and glyphosate (table)., March 21, 2015

[2015]Health Minister’s Recommnendation to the National Narcotics Council (Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes) Recommendation that, in view of the IARC’s recent classification of gylphosate in category 2 under the consideration that it is possibly carcinogenic to humans and as of the Constitutional Court’s Auto 073, that the Precautionary Principle be applied and the use of glyphosate in aerial spraying operations be suspended immediately. Concepto del Ministerio de Salud al Consejo Nacional de Estupefacientes , April 24, 2015

[2015] Caracol Radio The United States believes its government has sufficient scientific evidence to show that this product doe snot cause cancer contrary to what the WHO sustains. It invites the Colombian government to continue backing current antinarcotics programs, including aerial spraying at least until the Havana Peace Talks come to end. EE.UU. defiende glifosato y dice que en Colombia sube producción de cocaína April 27, 2015 (Interview with Ambassador William Brownfield)

UN 2015 Equator Prize “-In the midst of armed conflict, the Inga indigenous peoples of Aponte (a population of 3,600) successfully fought to recover their sovereignty and rights to their 22,283 hectares of ancestral territory. The group brokered a groundbreaking agreement with the Government of Colombia to reframe a national program designed to pay indigenous peoples to clear drug plantations from their land. The Inga of Aponte negotiated to receive a communal fund to support the entire community in their work to rid the territory of the armed guerillas, paramilitaries and drug-trafficking groups that had between 1986 and 2004 violated their territorial rights, degraded local ecosystems and stymied sustainable development. Following expulsion of these groups, the Inga people set aside the majority of their land as a 17,500-hectare sacred area. The community organized themselves around a local governance model that is based on shared a vision of justice and collective action on health, education, community services, ecosystem restoration and sustainable livelihoods. At the same time, the group created the Court of Indigenous Peoples and Authorities from the Colombian Southwest, designed to support other indigenous peoples in reclaiming their ancestral territories and combatting drug trafficking.” (Inga páramo lands –Colombia’s main water sources- were planted with poppy which grows at high altitudes) 2015

[2015] __ Delitos fuente del lavado de activos According to a study carried out by the criminal law research department of the Universidad del Rosario, in Colombia sentencing fro money laundering only takes into consideration source crimes: illicit enrichment in 60% of the cases and narcotics trafficking in the remaining 40%. Criminalization of money laundering was, in principle, a response as part of the combat against the illicit and psychotropic substances’ traffic and it has gradually evolved to include other punishable conducts., 2015

[2015] EFFACE: Can Cocaine Production in Colombia be linked to Environmental Crime?: A case study on the effect of European Union legislation on the trade . “This case study highlights the interrelationship between cocaine production, a drug - related criminal activity and environmental pollution and degradation, activities that are considered to be environmental crimes in many parts of the world today. To a lesser extent, this case study also explores the links between cocaine trafficking and organised crime groups, such as the militias in Colombia. There , cocaine production is no t just an ordinary illicit activity , it is also a means used by the militias to secure territory, power, finances and weaponry . The European Union represents the second largest market in the world for cocaine. It also exports 20% of the world’s chemical precursors, with Germany as the largest European producer with 5.7% share of the global sales. Chemical precursors such as potassium permanganate, an essential ingredient in cocaine production, are highly monitored yet Colombia seized 80% of the global seizure of illicit potassium permanganate for the period of 2007 - 2012. Criminals have adopted various diversion methods to make up for the ir losses from tighter controls on chemical precursors trafficking. There is legislation in place that monitor the trade of chemical precursors within and outside the borders of the EU. In the pages to follow, the case study will seek to examine if the said legislation has been effective in preventing the illicit use of chemical prec ursors in cocaine production in Colombia and as a consequence help to prevent further environmental pollution and degradation.” , 2015

[2015]Colombian Campaign Against Mines & Center for International Human Rights of Northwestern University, Pritzker School of Law: Human Rights “Many civilian eradicators have been killed and many more have been injured as a result of the State’s use of civilians to conduct forced manual era dication. At least 58 civilian eradicators have been killed by landmines and nine more have been killed in armed attacks against the eradication missions. 4 In addition to the dead, 356 civilian eradicators have been injured in landmine explosions, and 65 more have been injured in armed at tacks. 5 These injuries include loss of limbs, severe shrapnel wounds, and debilitating psychological damage. 6 More will be killed or injured unless this policy is ended.” Submitted for consideration at the 116 th Session of the Human Rights Committee March 2016, Geneva December 2015

[2016] "Foreign wars" This HBO documentary portrays testimonies on Colombia’s 60-year undeclared civil war. It highlights how the actors view the interests that exist behind this war and who has the most to gain from it. Gueras ajenas, Posted December 2016

[2016] Ben McKay, Flavio Bladimir Rodríguez Muñoz, and Darío Fajardo”: The Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests in the Context of National Food Security in Colombia: Towards democratic land-based resource control”, “Between 1984 and 2011, the area classified under agricultural u se expanded from 35.8 to 40.2 million hectares (ha), yet 24 per cent of this 4.4 million ha expansion was appropriated by rural estates of over 1000 ha (Fajardo, 2014:40). Instead of confronting the land question in a redistributive and democratic way, the current rural development model maintains t he unequal agrarian structure but has established special zones for rural development and economic in terest known as ZIDRES (Zonas de Interés de Desarrollo Rural y Económico) which seek to promote the integration of peasant farmers with agro-industry. As Fajardo point out however, these asymmet rical relations are likely to revive a form of sharecropping and will exacerbate forms of dispossession through ‘legal channels’ (2014:41). Global governance/politics, climate justice & agrarian/social justice: linkages and challenges An international colloquium 4 -5 February 2016 Colloquium Paper No. 19 International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) , February 2016

[2016] Julian Wilches Backpacking glyphosate - The government is considering bringing back spraying with glyphosate, this time using backpack sprayers. Manual eradication has proven to be a highly dangerous and ineffective measure. Wilches mentions how almost 300 manual eradicators have lost their lives (since the measure was once again implemented in 2005) and over 1,000 people have been maimed (due to the landmines planted in the coca fields.) He believes there is a need to think out a whole new concept on eradication. "Con el glifosato a cuestas", La Silla Vacía May 3, 2016

[2016] Jerónimo Ríos Sierra “This article aims to present the security policies implemented by Andrés Pastrana (1998 - 2002) and Alvaro Uribe (2002 - 2010) and how these policies transformed the FARC and ELN guerrillas, taking into consideration the change in the spatial dynamics of the armed conflict, which has increasingly focused on peripheral and border enclaves and the increased reliance of funds coming from illicit crops. All this ended up distorting the guerrillas and enhances the ability to understand the new dynamics of violence in Colombia and the real options for overcoming the conflict.” La narcotización del activismo guerrillero de las FARC y EL ELN 1998 - 2012 Revista UNISCI / UNISCI Journal, Nº 41 ( Mayo / May 2016)

[2016] UNODC World Drug Report 2015 - "Not only did coca bush cultivation continue to decline in 2013, reaching the lowest level since the mid-1980s, when estimates first became available, but the annual prevalence of cocaine use (0.4 per cent of the adult population) also continued to decline in Western and Central Europe and North America. In those subregions, which, along with South America, have the world’s largest cocaine markets, the prevalence of cocaine use is highest. Supply reduction measures may have contributed to the decline in coca bush cultivation in the coca-producing countries, leading to a reduction in the availability of cocaine and the shrinking of some of the principal cocaine markets." june 2016

[2016] Ariel Ávila Ariel Ávila The Mafia that Governed Us : The now-Senator , Álvaro Uribe, has called for civil resistance. This appeal is launched on the basis of two factors. The first refers to the rejection of the peace accords alleging that they are a source of impunity. The second is the aim to protect a series of Mafiosi elites who have kept the land they have stolen from peasants and see the peace process as a threat to everything they have conquered since peace would imply investigating the truth and having to return what they have despoiled. These despoiling sectors call/see themselves as third parties who have acquired these lands in good faith. Most of these elites are grouped together under the Centro Democrático Party. La mafia que nos gobernó La resistencia civil de Uribe no es contra la impunidad, sino para lograrla. Semana, 17 de mayo 2916

[2016] The Guardian: Colombia to use glyphosate in cocaine fight again Use of herbicide suspended last year due to cancer concerns, but will now be applied manually, not by crop dusters […] “A better eradication strategy, the experts insist, is the one already in place and which the government has been promising to scale up. In that approach, work crews pull up coca bushes by the roots, thus ensuring plants can’t grow back as happens after exposure to glyphosate.” April 19, 2016

Colombia National Police. Senior Aviation Advisor _“Assignments involve organizations, operations, and functions of significant complexity involving U.S., Colombian, and in an international environment. Adaptability and flexibility are required. Assignments include analysis of all facets of aviation management and involve a fleet of primarily rotary wing aircraft, which function within an integrated program of diverse counter-narcotics missions. These missions include manual eradication, aerial interdiction, forward area aerial re-supply, replenishment, sustainment, and host nation aviation training.” (en mamacoca) July 7, 2016

[2016] Teófilo Vásquez Delgado (Research coordinator): There are more than a few challenges facing the follow-up phase of the peace accords signature (signed with the FARC), the post-conflict and the building of a stable and long-lasting peace. One of these challenges is undoubtedly the armed groups which ensued from the negotiation process between the extinct AUC (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia /Colombian Self-Defense Groups) and former President Alvaro Uribe Velez. These armed groups still exercise control over the peoples and territories in certain regions of the country and they continue to fund themselves through their ability to partake in old and new illegal economic activities. What is more, recently, these post-demobilization armed groups (GAPD1) have shown that they not only enjoy territorial control in several regions but they have made their ability to destabilize fairly clear when, by paralyzing all of the activities in the regions they hold, they seek to show that their organizations are to be taken into consideration in the upcoming post-conflict phase. Grupos Armados Posdesmovilización (2006 - 2015) Trayectorias, rupturas y continuidades Centro Nacional de Memoria Histórica, diciembre 2016

[2016] ____Public Interventions by the Colombian State in Rural Property Rights for Redistribution Purposes: Between expropriation and confiscation “…the State takes on the behavior of a private party that arbitrates between citizens, which leaves the execution of public policies on the assignment of rural property rights in the hands of private parties and local civil servants. For this reason, the public policies on occupation of the territory have been developed through a typical process of indirect presence, which offers some of the actors competitive advantages over others in the claims for land. An example of this is the debate s parked by the Zidres law . […] We do not know to what degree the manifestations of violence in rural areas are related to the use of eminent domain by the state, but there is evidence of access by large land owners and local elites to private mechanisms of violence to defend their interests and guarantee their security.” __IPSA

June S. Beittel and Liana W. Rosen Colombia’s Changing Approach to Drug Policy Colombia is one of the largest producers of cocaine globally , and it also produces heroin bound for the United States. Counternarcotics policy has long been a key component of the U.S. - Colombia n relationship, which some analysts have described as “driven by drugs.” Now, Colombia is changing its approach to counternarcotics policy, which may have implications for the U . S. - Colombian relationship [March 10, 2017]

[2017] Departamento del Magadalena: The post conflict in the Santa Marta municipality is now threatened by a new strategy: the Convivir, in the hands of former middle-ranking commanders who have come back after serving 9-year sentences under the Peace and Justice Law . There is talk in the region of a renewed paramilitary takeover. They are said to have come to accompany the Army, the Police, they have licensed firearms, bodyguards and offer the communities their protection as “legal” private security forces. El regreso de las Convivir, abril l 2017

[2017] Adriaan Alsema: Colombia military assassinated more civilians under Uribe than FARC did in 30 years “ — once the Transitional Justice Court takes force — “Uribe will have to respond not just for the paramilitary massacre in El Aro, and the (para)military operations “Genesis” in 1997 and “Orion” in 2002. He will also be called to trial to explain the 4,000 homicides committed when he was commander in chief.” (Note: Not to mention that the truth about the role of this U.S.-backed President in narcotics trafficking networks in Colombia might eventually come to light), Colombia Reports, January 5, 2017

[2017]: Andrew Weil: Coca Should be Fully Legal /La coca debe ser totalmente legal" If people realized that coca, and not cocaine, is an extraordinary stimulant, perfect for modern economy since it gives you a feeling of wellbeing, without being addictive, not toxic and it’s much healthier and improves concentration more than coffee. Semana, ”. 23 de febrero 2017

2017] United States Department of State Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs International Narcotics Control Strategy Report -Drug and Chemical Control "Although international and U.S. surveys indicate overall production of coca leaf for cocaine has remained stable from a decade ago, Colombia has seen a 42 percent increase in illegal coca crop cultivation from 2014 to 2015. Colombia remain s the major provider of cocaine available in the United States, though data shows that cocaine use is declining in the United States and in Europe. However, U.S. rates of overdose involving cocaine were up in 2014. Increased Colombian coca cultivation can be attributed to a number of factors, including Colombia’s decision to end the aerial coca eradication program in October 2015 throughout the country. Even prior to the end of spray eradication, coca growers began to implement “counter” eradication techniques, such as migrating their plantings to areas where spray was not permitted by law or policy. Illegal coca cultivators also began to cultivate smaller, better concealed fields to avoid detection by law enforcement. Colombia has reformulated its counternarcotics strategy to prioritize robust law enforcement activity against criminal drug trafficking organizations, including enhanced interdiction, over that of crop eradication. In 2015, the country seized 295 metric tons of cocaine along with other illegal drugs."[...] Así nos proyectamos: "The U.S. government estimates for coca leaf, cocaine, marijuana, opium, and heroin production are potential estimates ; that is, it is assumed that all of the coca, cannabis, and poppy grown is harvested and processed into illicit drugs. This is a reasonable assumption for coca leaf in Colombia. In Bolivia and Peru, however, the U.S. government potential cocaine product ion estimates do not remove for coca leaf locally chewed and used in products such as coca tea." (These reports never inform or do surveys on marijuana crops, production and eradication in the United States) , March 2017

[2017] ONDCP Releases Data on Cocaine Cultivation in Colombia - “According to the annual estimate, Colombian cocaine cultivation (sic) increased 18%, from 159,000 hectares in 2015 to 188,000 hectares in 2016. The figure is record high. Potential cocaine production in Colombia also surged to record levels increasing by 37%, from 520 metric tons in 2015 to 710 metric tons in 2016. , March 14, 2017, March 14, 2017

[2018] Kenzi Riboulet Zemouli The Crimson Digest Briedfing on the international scientific assessment on cannabis Processes , stakeholders and history Written and edited by< Co-authored by Michael Krawitz and Farid Ghehiouèche - FAAAT Think and Do Tank, (The authors thank the support from the European Industrial Hemp Association, Hempoint, CBDepot, Harmony Ltd, Don E. Wirtshafter’s Cannabis Museum, Revista Cañamo and Sensi Seeds) November 2018

Mamacoca es ...

MamaCoca is a Colombian environmental and human rights social organization active since 1998 and legally consolidated in France in 2003 under Loi 1901. MamaCoca, apart from being part of the International Drug-Policy Reform Movement, is also part of the wide “biodiverse” Colombian Environmental Movement which has been historically and actively committed to defending a silent devastated victim of Colombia’s Drug War: the Nation's’ natural resources.
The information posted by MamaCoca seeks to feed the "drug" debate from a documented and pluralist perspective. Through our advocacy and information we hope to contribute to fueling research and informing the design and implementation of public policies geared at conciliating environmental resiliency and sustainability with legal measures aimed at reducing coca growers and drug users' vulnerabilities.